! 


< 


mMAMY 


ithrmttg  af  California 

REFERENCE. 


fim 


No... 

Division 

Range 

Shelf.  

Received 187. 


DOCUMENTS 
OCPT. 


JOU  RIST  AL 


PROCEEDINGS 


IP^ottri  Jltate  Confrente, 


HELD     AT 


JEFFERSON    CITY    AND    ST.    LOUIS, 


Marcli,   1861. 


ST.    LOUIS, 

GEORGE    KNAPP    &    CO.,    PRINTERS    AND    BINDERS, 
1861. 


•tfr 


ffiOtf 


.A  1ST   A.  O  T 


TO    PROVIDE    FOR    CALLING    A 


STATE    CONVENTION. 


Whereas,  In  the  opinion  of  the  General  Assem- 
bly, the  condition  of  public  affairs  demands 
that  a  Convention  of  the  people  be  called,  to 
take  such  action  as  the  interest  and  welfare 
of  the  State  may  require :  Therefore, 
Be  it  enacted  by  the   General  Assembly  of  the 
State  of  Missouri,  as  follows: 
Section  1.   That  an  election  for  delegates  to  a 
Convention  of  the  people  of  the  State  of  Mis- 
souri, shall  be  held  at  tho  several  places  of  voting 
in  this  State,  on  Monday,  the  18th  day  of  Feb- 
ruary, one  thousand  eight  hundred  and  sixty-one, 
which  election  shall  me  managed  and  conducted 
by  the  Sheriffs,  or  other  proper  officers  of  the 
counties  respectively,  in  the  same  manner,  and 
according  to  the  same  rules  and  regulations,  as 
are  now  prescribed  by  law  for  the  election  of 
members  of  the  General  Assembly.    And  it  is 
hereby  declared  to  be  the  duty  of  the  Governor 
to  issue  his  proclamation  to  the  several  sheriffs 
of  the  State,  immediately  after  the  passage  of 
this  act,  requiring  them  to  hold  and  conduct  said 
election  according  to  law;  and  the  said  sheriffs 
shall  advertise  the  time  and  place  of  holding  said 
election  for  as  long  a  time  as  practicable,  by 
publication  in  the    several  newspapers  of  their 
respective  counties,  and  by  posting  notices  at  ten 
public  places  in  each  county. 

Sec.  2.  Each  State  Senatorial  District,  as  now 
constituted  by  law,  shall  be  entitled  to  elect  three 
times  as  many  delegates  to  said  Convention  as 
said  district  is  now  entitled  to  members  in  the 
State  Senate. 

Sec.  3.  No  person  shall  be  a  member  of  said 
Convention  who  shall  not  have  attained  to  the 
age  of  twenty-four  years,  who  shall  not  be  a  free 
white  male  citizen  of  the  United  States,  who  shall 


I  not  have  been  a  citizen  ot  this  State  two  years, 
and  of  the  district  which  he  represents  one  year 
next  before  his  election. 

Sec.  4.  In  all  districts  composed  of  two  or 
more  counties,  the  Clerks  of  all  the  counties  shall 
transmit  to  the  Clerk  of  the  county  first  named 
by  the  law  now  forming  said  districts,  on  the  day 
succeeding  said  election,  or  as  soon  as  possible 
thereafter,  a  certificate  under  their  hands  of  the 
number  of  votes  given  for  each  candidate  in  each 
respective  county ;  and  said  returns  shall  be  sent 
by  special  messengers,  who  shall  receive  the  sum 
of  five  dollars  a  day  for  their  service,  to  be  paid 
out  of  the  Treasury  of  the  county  from  which 
said  returns  may  be  sent.  The  Clerk  of  the  coun- 
ty to  which  returns  shall  be  made,  after  examin- 
ing the  same,  shall  give  to  the  persons  showing 
the  highest  number  of  votes,  according  to  the 
number  of  delegates  to  which  each  district  is  en- 
titled, certificates  of  election  under  the  seal  of  his 
office;  and  said  clerks  shall  also  certify  said  re- 
turns to  the  Secretary  of  State,  as  now  provided 
by  law  in  case  of  the  election  of  Senators. 

Sec.  5.  The  delegates  elected  under  the  pro- 
visions of  this  act  shall  assemble  at  Jefferson 
City,  on  Thursday,  the  28th  day  of  February, 
1861,  and  organize  themselves  into  a  Convention, 
by  the  election  of  a  President,  and  such  other 
officers  as  they  may  deem  necessary;  and  shall 
proceed  to  consider  the  then  existing  relations 
between  the  Government  of  the  United  States, 
the  people  and  Governments  of  the  different 
States,  and  the  Government  and  people  of  the 
State  of  Missouri;  and  to  adopt  such  measures 
for  vindicating  the  sovereignty  of  the  State  and 
the  protection  of  its  institutions,  as  shall  appear 
to  them  to  be  demanded. 


Sec.  6.  Said  Convention  shall  adopt  such  rules 
and  regulations  for  its  government,  and  the  pro- 
per transaction  of  business,  as  they  shall  think 
proper.  They  shall  have  the  same  privileges  as 
the  members  of  the  General  Assembly  now  have, 
by  law;  and  the  officers,  members  and  assistants 
of  said  Convention  shall  receive  the  same  com- 
pensation as  is  now  allowed  by  law  to  the  offi- 
cers, members  and  assistants  of  the  House  of 
Representatives;  and  said  compensation  shall  be 
allowed  and  paid  them  in  the  same  manner. 

Sec.  7.  In  cases  of  contested  elections  to  said 
Convention,  the  contending  candidates  shall  pur- 
sue the  same  course  and  be  governed  by  the  same 
rules,  as  are  now  prescribed  by  law  in  relation  to 
contested  elections  for  members  of  the  General 
Assembly;  and  the  Convention  shall  be  the  judge 
of  all  such  contested  elections  for  membership 
therein. 

Sec.  8.  In  case  of  vacancy  occurring  in  said 
Convention,  by  death,  resignation,  or  otherwise, 
of  any  member,  the  same  shall  be  filled  in  the 
same  manner  as  now  prescribed  by  law  for  filling 
vacancies  in  the  State  Senate. 

Sec.  9.  All  persons  qualified  to  vote  for  mem- 
bers of  the  General  Assembly,  under  existing 
laws,  shall  be  entitled  to  vote  for  delegates  to 
said  Convention. 

Sec.  10.  No  act,  ordinance,  or  resolution  of 
said  Convention  shall  be  deemed  to  be  valid  to 
change  or  dissolve  the  political  relations  of  this 
State  to  the  Government  of  the  United  States,  or 
any  other  State,  until  a  majority  or  the  qualified 
voters  of  this  State,  voting  upon  the  question, 
shall  ratify  the  same. 

Sec.  11.  The  County  Clerks  of  the  several 
counties,  immediately  after  the  returns  shall  be 
made  to  his  office,  on  said  act  or  ordinance  of 


said  Convention,  so  submitted,  shall  certify  the 
same  to  the  office  of  the  Secretary  of  State,  when 
the  Governor  shall  announce,  by  proclamation, 
the  result  of  said  election. 

This  act  shall  take  effect  and  be  in  force  from 
and  after  its  passage. 

Approved  January  21,  1861. 

I,  B.  F.  Massey,  Secretary  of  State,  do  hereby 
certify  that  the  foregoing  act,  entitled  "An  act 
to  provide  for  calling  a  State  Convention/'  is  a 
true  and  correct  copy  of  the  original  roll  of  said 
law  now  on  file  in  this  office. 

/^=^ss  In  testimony  whereof,  I  have  here- 
(SEAL  J  unto  set  my  hand,  and  affixed  the  seal 
v^lT^  of  office. 


Done  at  the  city  of  Jeffer 
son,  the  21st  day  of  January,  1861. 

B.  F.  MASSEY, 
Secretary  of  State. 


To  the  Sheriff  of 


County : 


In  conformity  with  the  requirements  of  the 
foregoing  law,  I,  C.  F.  Jackson,  Governor  of  the 
State  of  Missouri,  hereby  direct  and  command 
that  you  cause  the  notice  of  the  time  and  place 
of  holding  said  election  within  and  for  the  coun- 
ty, of  which  you  are  the  Sheriff,  to  be  given  in 
accordance  with  the  provisions  of  said  law. 


In  testimony  whereof,  I  have  here- 
;o  set  my  name,  and  caused  to  be 


(SEAL) 

^TT^  affixed  the  Great  Seal  of  the  State  of 
Missouri.  Done  at  the  City  of  Jefferson,  this 
21st  day  of  January,  A.  D.  1861;  of  the  Inde- 
pendence of  the  United  States  the  eighty-fifth, 
and  of  the  State  of  Missouri  the  fortieth. 

By  the  Governor:  C.  F.  JACKSON. 

B.  F.  Massey,  Secretary  of  State. 


NAMES  OF  THE   DELEGATES 


OF    THE 


STATE  CONVENTION  OF  MISSOURI 

WITH      THE 

NATIVITY,  AGE,  PROFESSION  AND  POST-OFFICE  ADDRESS. 


Names  of  Members.         Nativity  Age.  Profession.  Post  office  Address. 

Sterling  Price,  President. .  Virginia 51 Bank Commissioner.Brunswick,  Chariton  county. 

Sam.  A.  Lowe  Secretary.. Maryland 41. . .  .Clerk  of  Courts Georgetown,  Pettis  county. 

E.  A.  Campbell^ss'J.  Sec.  Missouri 26 Lawyer Bowling  Green,  Pike  county. 

C.  P.  Anderson,  D'r  A^er.Tennessee 42 Editor California. 

B.  W.  Grover,  SergH-at- A. Ohio 49 Farmer Warrensburg. 

And.  Monroe,  Cliaplain.  .Virginia 68  . .  .Minister Fayette. 

Allen,  J.  S Tennesse 46 Merchant Bethany,  Harrison  county. 

Bartlett,  Orson Virginia 61 Merchant Bloomfield,  Stoddard  county. 

Bass,  EliE..» Tennessee 54.  ...Farmer Ashland,  Boone  county. 

Bast,  George  Y Kentucky 48 Farmer Rhineland,  Montgomery  county. 

Birch  James  H Virginia 57. . .  Lawyer Plattsburg,  Clinton  county. 

Bogy,  Joseph Missouri 54 Farmer St.  Mary's  Ld'g,  Ste.  Genevieve  co 

Breckinridge,  Sam.  M Kentucky 32  ...  Judge  Circuit  Court,St.  Louis. 

Broadhead,  Jas.  O Virginia 41 Lawyer St.  Louis. 

Bridge,  Hudson  E. New  Hampshire 50 Merchant St.  Louis. 

Brown,  R.  A Tennessee 51. . .  .Farmer Harrisonville,  Cass  county. 

Bush,  Isidor Austria 39 Merchant St.  Louis. 

Calhoun,  Robert Ireland 57 Farmer Concord,  Callaway  county. 

Cayce,  Milton  P Virginia 56 Merchant Farmington,  St.  Francis  county. 

Chenault,  Jno.  R Kentucky 51 Judge  Circuit  Court,Carthage,  Jasper  county. 

Collier,  Sam.  C Missouri 35 Lawyer Fredericktown,  Madison  county 

Comingo,  A Kentucky 41  ...Lawyer Independence. 

Crawford,  Robert  W Virginia 49 Lawyer Mt.  Vernon,  Lawrence  county. 

Doniphan  A.  W Kentucky 52 Lawyer Liberty,  Clay  county. 

Donnell,  R.  W North  Carolina 42 Merchant  &  Banker,St.  Joseph. 

Douglass,  William Virginia 32  . .  .Lawyer Boonville,  Cooper  county. 

Drake,  Charles Kentucky 32  —  Lawyer California,  Moniteau  county 

Dunn,  George  W Kentucky 45 Judge  Circuit  Court  Richmond. 

Eitzen,Chas.  D Bremen 41 Merchant Hermann. 


6 


Names  of  Members.  Nativity.  Age. 

Frayser,  Robert  B Virginia 65. . 

Flood,  Joseph Kentucky 48. . 

Foster,  John  D Kentucky 40. . 

Gamble,  Hamilton  E Virginia 62. . 

Gantt,  Thos.  T District  Columbia. .  46. . 

Givens  N.  F Kentucky 52. . 

Gorin,  Henry  M Kentucky 48. . 

Gravely  J.  J Virginia 82. . 

Hall,  Willard  F Virginia 40  . 

Hall,  William  A Maine 45. . 

Harbin,  A.  S North  Carolina.. . .  60. . 

Hatcher,  Robert  A Virginia 42. . 

Henderson,  John  B Virginia 34. . 

Hendrick,  Littleberry Virginia 61  . 

Hill,  V.  B Kentucky 32. . 

Hitchcock,  Henry Alabama  31. . 

Holmes,  Robert Pennsylvania 45. . 

Holt,  John Kentucky 66. . 

Hough,  Harrison Kentucky 49. . 

How,  John Pennsylvania 50. . 

Howell,  Wm.  J Kentucky 47. . 

Hudgins,  Prince  L . .  Kentucky 49. . 

Irwin,  Joseph  M ..Virginia 42. . 

Isbell,  Z Virginia 48.. 

Jackson,  Wm Tennessee 38. . 

Jamison,  Robert  W. Kentucky    49. . 

Johnson,  James  W Virginia 49. . 

Kidd,  Christopher  G Kentucky 40.. 

Knott,  J.  Proc Kentucky 30.. 

Leper,  Wm.  T Tennessee 38. . 

Linton,  M.  L Kentucky 52... 

Long,  JohnF Missouri 44. . 

Marmaduke,  Vincent Missouri 28.. 

Marvin,  Asa  C New  Hampshire 46. . 

Matson,  James  T Missouri 39. . , 

Maupin,  A.  W Missouri 33.. 

McClurg,  J.  W Missouri 43.. 

McCormack,  Jas.  E Missouri 36  .. 

McDowell,  Nelson Illinois 59... 

McFerran,  James ...  Maryland 41. . . 

Meyer,  Ferdinand Prussia 34. .. 

Morrow,  W.  L Tennessee 43 

Moss,  James  H Missouri 85  . 

Noell.  James  C Virginia 29. . 

Norton,  E.  H Kentucky 39.. 

Orr,  Sample Tennessee.  44.. 

Phillips,  John  F Missouri 26.. 

Pipkin,  Philip Tennessee 46. . 

Pomeroy,  William  G New  York 46. . 

Rankin,  Chas.  G Missouri 53  . 

Ray,  RobertD Kentucky 44.. 

Redd,  John  T Kentucky 44. . 

Ritchey,  M.  H Tennessee 49.  .. 


Profession.  Post  office  Address 

•  -Farmer Naylor's  Store,  St.  Charles  county . 

.  .Farmer Fulton,  Callaway  county. 

.  .Lawyer Kirksville,  Adair  county. 

..Lawyer St.  Louis. 

.  .Lawyer St.  Louis. 

.  .Lawyer Waterloo,  Clark  county. 

.  .Merchant Memphis,  Scotland  county. 

.  .Farmer Bear  Creek,  Cedar  county. 

. .  Lawyer St.  Joseph,  Buchanan  county. 

.  .Judge  Circuit  Court,Darksville,  Randolph  county. 

.  .Farmer Washburne  Prairie,  Barry  county 

.  .Lawyer New  Madrid,  New  Madrid  county. 

.  .Lawyer Louisiana,  Pike  county. 

.  Lawyer Springfield,  Greene  county. 

. .  Lawyer Waynesville,  Pulaski  county. 

..Lawyer St.  Louis. 

.  .Lumber  Dealer St.  Louis. 

.  .Farmer Dent  Court  House,  Dent  county- 

.  .Judge  Circuit  Court,Wolf  Island,  Miss,  county 

..Tanner St.  Louis. 

.  .Lawyer Paris,  Monroe  county. 

.  .Lawyer Savannah,  Andrew  county. 

. .  Lawyer Shelby ville,  Shelby  county. 

.  .Farmer.  Linn,  Osage  county. 

.  .Farmer Newtown,  Putnam  county. 

..Farmer Marshfield,  Webster  county. 

. .  Farmer Bolivar. 

. .  Lawyer Calhoun,  Henry  county. 

. .  Lawyer Jefferson  City,  Cole  county. 

.  Farmer Grenville,  Wayne  county. 

. .  Physician St.  Louis. 

, . .  Civil  Engineer St.  Louis. 

..Farmer Marshall,  Saline  county. 

, . .  Farmer Clinton,  Henry  county. 

.  .Physician Saverton,  Ralls  county. 

. .  Blacksmith Union,  Franklin  county. 

. .  Merchant Linn  Creek. 

. .Physician Appleton,  Perry  c.ounty. 

. .  Farmer Greenfield,  Dade  county. 

..Judge  Circuit  Court  Gallatin,  Daviess  county. 

Leather  Dealer St.  Louis. 

...Merchant Buffalo,  Dallas  county. 

.  Lawyer Liberty,  Clay  county. 

. .  Lawyer Greene  P.  O.,  Bollinger  county. 

. .  Lawyer Platte  City. 

.  .Lawyer Springfield,  Green  county. 

.  .Lawyer ...  Georgetown,  Pettis  county. 

.  .Lawyer Ironton,  Iron  county. 

.  .Lawyer Steelville,  Crawford  county. 

. .  Merchant Peveley,  Jefferson  county. 

.  .Lawyer Carrollton. 

.  .Lawyer Palmyra,  Marion  county. 

..Farmer Newtonia,  Newton  county. 


Names  of  Members.  Nativity.  Age. 

Ross,  James  P Maryland 48... 

Rowland,  Frederick North  Carolina 56. . 

Sawyer,  Samuel  L New  Hampshire.. .  .46. . 

Sayre,  E.  K  New  Jersey 51  . 

Scott,  Thomas.  Y Kentucky 44. . , 

Shackelford,  Thomas Missouri 39. . 

Shackeliord,  John  H Kentucky 57. . 

Sheeley,  James  K Kentucky 46. . , 

Smith,  Jacob Kentucky 44. . 

Smith,  Sol New  York 59.., 

Stewart,  Robert  M New  York 43 

Tindall,  Jacob  T Kentucky 34. . , 

Turner,  W.  W Illinois 24  .. 

Waller,  Joseph  G Virginia 58. . . 

Watkins,  N.  W Kentucky — . . . 

Welch,  Aikman Missouri 33. . . 

Wilson,  Robert Virginia 58 

Woodson,  Warren Virginia 64. . , 

Woolfolk,  Alexander  M.  .Kentucky 25. . . 

Wright,  Uriel Virginia 55. . . 

Vaubuskirk,  Ellzey Ohio 39. . , 

Zimmerman,  George  W... Virginia 67. . . 


Profession.  Post  office  Address. 

.  Lawyer Versailles,  Morgan  county. 

•  Farmer Macon  City. 

.Lawyer Lexington,  Lafayette  county. 

.  Farmer Monticello,  Lewis  county. 

•  Farmer Tuscumbia. 

.Lawyer Glasgow,  Howard  county. 

.Farmer.. Florissant,  St.  Louis  county. 

.Judge  Com  Pleas  Ct  Independence. 

.Lawyer Linneus,  Linn  county. 

.  Lawyer St.  Louis. 

.  Lawyer St.  Joseph,  Buchanan  county. 

.Lawyer Trenton,  Grundy  county. 

.Lawyer Lebanon,  Laclede  county. 

.Farmer Marthasville,  Warren  county. 

.Lawyer Jackson,  Cape  Girardeau  county, 

.Lawyer Warrensburg,  Johnson  county. 

.Lawyer St.  Joseph. 

.Farmer. Columbia,  Boone  county. 

.Lawyer Chilicothe,  Livingston  county. 

.Lawyer St.  Louis. 

.Circuit  Clerk Oregon,  Holt  county. 

.Farmer New  Hope.         .** 


JOURNAL 


OF  THE 


STATE    CONVENTION, 


Begun  and  held  in  the  City  of  Jefferson,  on  Thursday,  the 
28th  day  of  February,  A.  D.  1861. 


In  pursuance  of  the  5th  section  of  an  act  of 
the  General  Assembly  of  the  State  of  Missouri, 
entitled  "An  Act  to  provide  for  calling  of 
a  State  Convention,"  approved  January  21, 
1861,  the  delegates  to  a  Convention  of  the  peo- 
ple of  the  State  of  Missouri,  elected  from  the 
several  Senatorial  Districts  of  the  State,  as 
provided  by  said  law,  met  at  the  Court  House 
of  Cole  county,  in  the  city  of  Jefferson,  on 
Thursday  the  28th  day  of  February,  A.  D. 
1861,  that  being  the  day  fixed  by  law  for  that 
purpose. 

On  motion  of  Hon.  Sample  Orr,  Hon.  Ham- 
ilton K.  Gamble,  of  the  county  of  St.  Louis, 
was  called  to  the  chair  as  President  pro 
tempore. 

On  motion  of  Mr  Wilson,  of  Andrew  coun- 
ty, James  L.  Minor  was  requested  to  act  as 
Secretary  pro  tempore. 

On  motion  of  Mr.  Sheeley,  the  Rev.  An- 
drew Monroe  opened  the  Convention  with 
prayer. 

The  roll  of  the  Convention  being  called,  the 
following  gentlemen  answered  to  their  names  : 

From  the  First  Senatorial  District — Joseph 
G.  Waller,  of  St.  Charles  county;  George  W. 
Zimmerman,  of  Pike ;  R.  C.  Calhoun,  of  Au- 
drain. 

From  the  Third  Senatorial  District — War- 
ren Woodson,  of  Boone  county;  Eli  E.  Bass, 
of  Boone ;  Joseph  Flood,  of  Callaway. 


From  the  Fifth  Senatorial  District — Henry 
M.  Gorin,  of  Scotland  county;  E.  R.  Sayre,  of 
Lewis ;  N.  F.  Givens,  of  Clark. 

From  the  Sixth  Senatorial  District — Thomas 
Shackelford,  of  Howard  county;  Sterling  Price, 
of  Chariton ;  William  A.  Hall,  of  Randolph. 

From  the  Seventh  Senatorial  District— Fred- 
erick Rowland,  of  Macon  county;  Joseph  M. 
Irwin,  of  Shelby;  John  D.  Foster,  of  Adair. 

From  the  Eighth  Senatorial  District— A.  M. 
Woolfolk,  of  Livingston  county;  Jacob  Smith, 
of  Linn  ;  William  Jackson,  of  Putnam. 

From  the  Ninth  Senatorial  District— Jacob  T. 
Tindal,  of  Grundy  county;  John  S.  Allen,  of 
Harrison;  James  McFerran,  of  Daviess. 

From  the  Tenth  Senatorial  District— Robert 
D.  Ray,  of  Carroll  county;  James  H.  Birch,  of 
Clinton;  George  W.  Dunn,  of  Ray. 

From  the  Eleventh  Senatorial  District — Rob- 
ert Wilson,  of  Andrew  county. 

From  the  Twelfth  Senatorial  District.— Wil- 
lard  P.  Hall,  of  Buchanan  county. 

From  the  Thirteenth  Senatorial  District — 
James  H.  Moss,  of  Clay  county;  Elijah  D.  Nor- 
ton, of  Platte. 

From  the  Fourteenth  Senatorial  District — 
Robert  A.  Brown,  of  Cass  county;  James  K. 
Sheeley,  of  Jackson;  Abraham  Comingo,  of 
Jackson. 


10 


From  the  Fifteenth  Senatorial  District — Asa 
C.Marvin,  of  Henry  county;  Aikman  Welch, 
of  Johnson ;  Christopher  G.  Kidd,  of  Henry. 

From  the  Sixteenth  Senatorial  District — J. 
F.  Phillips,  of  Pettis  county;  Samuel  L.  Saw- 
yer, of  Lafayette ;  Vincent  Marmaduke,  of 
Saline. 

From  the  Seventeenth  Senatorial  District — 
John  R.  Chenault,  of  Jasper  county;  Nelson 
McDowell,  of  Dade ;  J.  J.  Gravely,  of  Cedar. 

From  the  Eighteenth  Senatorial  District — 
Robert  W.  Crawford,  of  Lawrence  county;  A. 
S.  Harbin,  of  Barry. 

From  the  Nineteenth  Senatorial  District — 
Sample  Orr,  of  Greene  county ;  Robert  W. 
Jamison,  of  Webster ;  Littlebury  Hendrick,  of 
Greene. 

From  the  Twentieth  Senatorial  District — 
W.  W.  Turner,  of  Laclede  county;  James  W. 
Johnson,  of  Polk ;  William  L.  Morrow,  of 
Dallas. 

From  the  Twenty -First  Senatorial  District — 
Z.  Isbell,  of  Osage  county;  Charles  D.  Eitzen, 
of  Gasconade. 

From  the  Twenty-Second  Senatorial  Dis- 
trict— William  G.  Pomeroy,  of  Crawford  coun- 
ty; John  Holt,  of  Dent. 

From  the  Twenty-Third  Senatorial  Dis- 
trict— Joseph  Bogy,  of  Ste.  Genevieve  county; 
Charles  S.  Rankin,  d  Jefferson ;  Milton  P. 
Cayce,  of  St.  Francois. 

From  the  Twenty -Fifth  Senatorial  District — 
Robert  A.  Hatcher,  of  New  Madrid  county; 
Orson  Bartlett,  of  Stoddard. 

From  the  Twenty-Sixth  Senatorial  District — 
Nathaniel  W.  Watkins,  of  Cape  Girardeau  coun- 
ty; James  R.  McCormack,  of  Perry. 

From  the  Twenty-Seventh  Senatorial  Dis- 
trict— J.  Proctor  Knott,  of  Cole  county;  Thos. 
Scott,  of  Miller ;  J.  W.  McClurg,  of  Camden. 


From  the  Twenty-Eighth  Senatorial  Dis- 
trict— Charles  Drake  of  Moniteau  county;  Wil- 
liam Douglass,  of  Cooper;  James  P.  Ross,  of 
Morgan. 

From  the  Twenty-Ninth  Senatorial  Dis- 
trict— Sol.  Smith,  of  St.  Louis  couty;  John  H. 
Shackelford,  of  St.  Louis ;  M.  L.  Linton,  of  St. 
Louis ;  Henry  Hitchcock,  of  St.  Louis ;  John 
How,  of  St.  Louis ;  James  0.  Broadhead,  of 
St.  Louis;  Samuel  M.  Breckinridge,  of  St. 
Louis  ;  Hudson  E.  Bridge,  of  St.  Louis  ;  Ham- 
ilton R.  Gamble,  of  St.  Louis ;  Robert  Holmes, 
of  St.  Louis;  Uriel  Wright,  of  St.  Louis; 
Isadore  Bush,  of  St.  Louis  ;  Ferdinand  Meyer, 
of  St.  Louis;  John  F.  Long,  of  St.  Louis. 

In  all  seventy-nine. 

On  motion  of  Mr.  Watkins,  it  was 

Resolved,  That  the  Chair  appoint  a  commit- 
tee of  five  to  receive  and  examine  the  credentials 
of  the  members  of  the  Convention,  and  that  the 
committee  be  directed  to  report  at  ten  o'clock 
on  to-morrow  morning. 

Whereupon  the  Chair  appointed  on  said 
committee  Messrs.  Watkins,  Birch,  Hall  of 
Randolph,  Linton  and  Orr. 

On  motion  of  Mr.  Rowland,  it  was 

Resolved,  That  a  committee  of  seven  be  ap- 
pointed to  report  what  officers  shall  be  neces- 
sary and  requisite  for  the  future  action  of  the 
Convention ; 

Whereupon  the  Chair  appointed  on  said  com- 
mittee Messrs.  Rowland,  Price,  Welch,  Hen- 
drick, Hatcher,  Broadhead  and  Wilson. 

On  motion  of  Mr.  Holt,  John  E.  Davis,  of 
Crawford  county,  was  requested  to  act  as  tem- 
porary doorkeeper. 

On  motion  of  Mr.  Birch,  the  Convention 
adjourned  to  meet  in  conclave  at  ten  o'clock  to 
morrow  morning. 


SECOND    DA-Y. 

FRIDAY,  MARCH  1,  1861. 


The  Convention  met  pursuant  to  adjourn- 
ment, and  was  opened  with  prayer  by  the  Rev. 
Andrew  Monroe. 

The  journal  was  then  read  by  the  secretary. 

The  following  named  members  of  the  Con- 
vention appeared  and  took  their  seats  : 

From  the  First  Senatorial  District — George 
Y.  Bast,  of  Montgomery  county;  Robert  B. 
Frayser,  of  St.  Charles. 


From  the  Second  Senatorial  District — John 
B.  Henderson,  of  Pike  county. 

From  the  Fourth  Senatorial  District — Wil- 
liam J.  Howell,  of  Monroe  county;  John  T. 
Redd,  of  Marion ;  James  T.  Matson,  of  Ralls. 

From  the  Eleventh  Senatorial  District — 
Prince  L.  Hudgins,  of  Andrew  county;  Ellzay 
Vanbuskirk,  of  Holt. 


11 


From  the  Twelfth  Senatorial  District— Robt. 
M.  Stewart,  of  Buchanan  county;  Robert  W. 
Donnell,  of  Buchanan. 

From  the  Twenty-First  Senatorial  District — 
Amos  W.  Maupin,  of  Franklin  county. 

From  the  Twenty-Fourth  Senatorial  Dis- 
trict— Philip  Pipkin,  of  Iron  county;  William 
T.  Leeper,  of  Wayne ;  Samuel  C.  Collier,  of 
Madison. 

From  the  Twenty-Sixth  Senatorial  District — 
James  C.  Noell,  of  Bollinger  county. 

From  the  Eighteenth  Senatorial  District — 
Mathew  II.  Ritchey,  of  Newton  county. 

From    the    Twenth-Ninth    Senatorial    Dis- 
trict— Thomas  T.  Gantt,  of  St.  Louis  county. 
Mr.  Watkinr,  from  the  Committee  en  Cre" 
dentials,  made  the  following  report : 

Mr.  President : — The  special  committee  o^ 
five,  to  whom  was  referred  the  subject  of  the 
credentials  of  the  members  of  this  body,  have 
had  the  same  under  consideration,  and  in- 
structed me  to  report,  that  from  the  certificates 
furnished  them,  and  the  official  returns  in  the 
office  of  the  Secretary  of  State,  they  find  the 
following  named  persons  duly  elected  : 

From  the  First  District — Joseph  G.  Waller, 
Robert  B.  Frayser,  George  Y.  Bast. 

From  the  Second  District — George  W.  Zim- 
merman, 11.  C.  Calhoun,  John  B.  Henderson. 

From  the  Third  District — Warren  Woodson, 
Eli  E.  Bass,  Joseph  Flood. 

From  the  Fourth  District — Wm.  J.  Howell 
James  T.  Matson,  John  T.  Redd. 

From  the  Fifth  District — Henry  M.  Gorin, 
E.  K.  Sayre,  N.  F.  Givens. 

From  the  Sixth  District— William  A.  Hall, 
Thomas  Shackelford,  Sterling  Price. 

From  the  Seventh  District; — Joseph  M.  Irwin, 
John  D.  Foster,  Frederick  Rowland. 

From  the  Eighth  District— A.  M.  Woolfolk, 
Jacob  Smith,  William  Jackson. 

From  the  Ninth  District— Jacob  T.  Tindall, 
John  S.  Allen,  James  McFerran. 

From  the  Tenth  District— Robert  D.  Ray, 
James  H.  Birch,  George  W.  Dunn. 

From  the  Eleventh  District— Robert  Wilson, 
Ellzay  Vanbuskirk,  Prince  L.  Hudgins. 

From  the  Twelfth  District— Robert  W.  Don- 
nell, Robert  M.  Stewart,  Willard  P.  Hall. 

From  the  Thirteenth  District— Elijah  D. 
Norton,  James  H.  Moss. 

From  the  Fourteenth  District — Robert  A. 
Brown,  James  K.  Sheeley,  Abraham  Comingo. 
From  the  Fifteenth  District— Asa   C.  Mar- 
vin, Aikman  Welch,  Christopher  G.  Kidd. 


From  the  Sixteenth  District— John  F.  Phil- 
lips, Samuel  L.  Sawyer,  Vincent  Marmaduke 
From    the   Seventeenth    District— John  R' 
Chenault,  Nelson  McDowell,  J.  J.  Gravely. 

From  the  Eighteenth  District— Robert  W. 
Crawford,  A.  S.  Harbin,  Mathew  H.  Ritchey. 
From  the  Nineteenth  District— Sample  Orr, 
Robert  W.  Jamison,  Littlebury  Hendrick. 

From  the  Twentieth  District — W.  W.  Tur- 
ner,   James  W.  Johnson,  William  L.  Morrow. 
From  the  Twenty-First  District— Z.  Isbell 
Amos  W.  Maupin,  Charles  D.  Eitzen. 

From  the  Twenty-Second  District— William 
G.  Pomeroy,  John  Holt,  V.  B.  Hill. 

From  the  Twenty-Third  District— Joseph 
Bogy,  Charles  S.  Rankin,  Milton  P.  Cayce. 

From   the   Twenty-Fourth  District— Philip 
Pipkin,  Samuel  C.  Collier,  William  T.  Deeper. 
From  the  Twenty-Fifth  District— Robert  A. 
Hrtcher,  Orson  Bartlett,  Harrison  Hough. 

From  the  Twenty-Sixth  District— Nathaniel 
W.  Watkins,  James  C.  Noell,  James  R.  McCor- 
mack. 

From  the  Twenty-Seventh  District— Thos. 
Scott,  J.  Proctor  Knott,  J.  W.  McClurg. 

From  the  Twenty-Eighth  District— Charles 
Drake,  William  Douglass,  James  P.  Ross. 

From  the  Twenty-Ninth  District  —  Sol. 
Smith,  John  H.  Shackelford,  M.  L.  Linton, 
Henry  Hitchcock,  John  How,  James  0.  Broad- 
head,  Samuel  M.  Breckinridge,  Hudson  E. 
Bridge,  Hamilton  R.  Gamble,  Robert  Holmes, 
Uriel  Wright,  Isador  Bush,  Ferdinand  Meyer, 
John  F.  Long,  Thomas  T.  Gantt. 
All  of  which  is  respectfully  submitted. 

N.  W.  WATKINS,  Chairman. 
On  motion  of  Mr.  Foster,  the  report  of  the 
committee  was  received  and  the  committee  dis- 
charged from  the  further  consideration  of  the 
subject. 

Mr.  Rowland,  from  the  select  committee 
of  seven  to  report  officers  and  rules  for  the 
Convention,  presented  the  following  report : 

Mr.  President : — The  committee  which  was 
appointed  to  report  what  officers  may  be  neces- 
sary for  the  Convention,  and  also  to  report  rules 
for  the  government,  respectfully  report  : 

That,  in  the  opinion  of  the  committee,  the 
said  officers  should  consist  of  a  President,  Vice 
President,  Secretary,  Assistant  Secretary  and 
Doorkeeper. 

Your  committee  Avould  further  report,  that 
they  recommend  the  adoption  of  the  rules 
adopted  by  a  State  Convention,  which  assem- 
bled in  the  city  of  Jefferson  on  the  17th  day  of 
November,  1845,  and   found  on  pages  11,   12, 


12 


13,  14  and  15  of  the  journal  of  said  Conven- 
tion, except  rules  numbered  41,  42  and  44,  and 
the  following  words  in  rule  No.  49,  to  wit :  "And 
no  member  shall  be  allowed  pay  for  any  day 
that  he  shall  be  absent  from  the  session  of  the 
Convention,  unless  he  shall  be  prevented  from 
attending  by  sickness." 

Your  committee  would  further  recommend 
that  one  hundred  and  fifty  copies  of  said  rules 
be  printed  for  the  use  of  the  Convention.  Your 
Committee  would  further  recommend  the  adop- 
tion of  the  following  resolutions  : 

Resolved,  That  each  delegate  elected  to  this 
Convention,  before  entering  upon  the  discharge 
of  his  duties,  shall  take  an  oath  to  support  the 
Constitution  of  the  United  States,  and  of  the 
State  of  Missouri,  and  faithfully  demean  him- 
self in  office. 

Resolved,  That  each  officer  of  this  Conven- 
tion, except  the  President  and  Vice  President, 
before  entering  upon  the  discharge  of  the  du- 
ties of  his  office,  shall  take  an  oath  to  support 
the  Constitution  of  the  United  States  and  of 
this  State,  and  faithfully  demean  himself  in 
office.  And  that  when  the  Convention  shall  be 
in  secret  session,  he  will  not  divulge  or  make 
public  to  any  person,  anything  which  may  be 
said  or  done  in  said  Convention.  All  of  which 
is  respectfully  submitted. 

P.  ROWLAND,  Chairman. 

On  motion  of  Mr.  Welch,  the  report  of  the 
committee  was  adopted. 

Mr.  Pomeroy  moved  to  reconsider  the  vote 
on  the  adoption  of  the  resolutions  contained 
in  the  report  of  the  Committee  of  Seven,  rela- 
tive to  the  oaths  of  office. 

Mr.  Hall,  of  Buchanan,  moved  to  lay  the 
motion  to  reconsider,  on  the  table. 

Mr.  Pomeroy  having  withdrawn  his  motion, 
Mr.  Howell  renewed  it ;  pending  which,  Mr. 
Birch  asked  to  have  the  order  made  by  the 
Convention  yesterday,  to  meet  in  conclave,  exe- 
cuted by  the  President. 

Mr.  Sayre,  of  Lewis,  moved  to  amend 
the  Journal  of  yesterday,  by  striking  out  the 
words  "  to  meet  in  conclave  "  in  the  resolution 
of  adjournment,  which  was  decided  in  the 
affirmative. 

The  Convention  having  resumed  the  consid- 
eration of  the  motion  of  Mr.  Howell  to  recon- 
sider the  vote  on  the  adoption  of  the  report  of 
the  committee  relative  to  the  oaths  of  office, 
was  laid  upon  the  table,  on  the  motion  of  Mr. 
Hall,  of  Buchanan,  by  the  following  vote,  the 
ayes  and  noes  having  been  demanded  : 


Ayes. — Messrs.  Allen,  Bass,  Bogy,.  Breck- 
inridge, Broadhead,  Bridge,  Bush,  Calhoun, 
Cayce,  Chenault,  Donnell,  Dunn,  Eitzen,Flood, 
Poster,  Gamble,  Gantt,  Gravely,  Hall  of  Bu- 
chanan, Hall  of  Randolph,  Harbin,  Henderson, 
Hendrick,  Hitchcock,  Holmes,  How,  Irwin, 
Isbell,  Jackson,  Jamison,  Johnson,  Kidd,  Lee- 
per,  Linton,  Long,  Marvin,  Maupin,  McClurg, 
McCormack,  McDowell, Meyer,  Morrow,  Moss, 
Noell,  Norton,  Orr,  Phillips,  Price,  Rankin, Ray. 
Ritchie,  Rowland,  Scott,  Shackelford  of  St 
Louis,  Smith  of  Linn,  Smith  of  St.  Louis, 
Stewart,  Tindall,  Turner,  Welch,  Wilson, 
Woolfolk,  Wright,  Vanbuskirk,  and  Zimmer- 
man— 65. 

Noes. — Messrs.  Bartlett,  Bast,  Birch,  Brown, 
Collier,  Comingo,  Crawford,  Douglass,  Drake, 
Prayser,  Givens,  Gorin,  Hatcher,  Holt,  Howell, 
Hudgins,  Knott,  Marmaduke,  Matson,  Pipkin, 
Pomeroy,  Redd,  Ross,  Sawyer,  Sayre,  Shack- 
elford of  Howard,  Sheeley,  Waller  Watkins 
and  Woodson — 80. 

All  the  delegates  present,  on  motion,  then 
came  forward  and  the  oath  of  office  was  ad- 
ministered to  them  by  the  Hon.  George  W. 
Miller,  Judge  of  the  first  Judicial  Circuit  of 
the  State. 

The  rules  reported  by  the  committee  for  the 
government  of  the  Convention  were  adopted, 
and  are  as  follows  : 

OF  THE  PRESIDENT. 

First.  He  shall  take  the  chair  every  day  at 
the  hour  to  which  the  Convention  shall  have 
adjourned,  shall  immediately  call  the  members 
to  order,  and  on  the  appearance  of  a  quorum, 
shall  cause  the  Journal  of  the  preceeding  day 
to  be  read. 

Second.  He  shall  preserve  order  and  deco- 
rum ;  may  speak  to  points  of  order  in  prefer- 
ence to  the  members,  rising  from  his  seat  for 
that  purpose;  and  shall  decide  all  questions  of 
order,  subject  to  an  appeal  to  the  Convention, 
by  any  two  members  ;  on  which  appeal  no 
member  shall  speak  more  than  once,  unless  by 
leave  of  the  Convention. 

Third.  He  shall  rise  to  put  a  question,  but 
may  state  it  sitting. 

Fourth.  When  a  question  has  been  put,  if 
the  President  doubts,  or  if  a  division  be  called 
for,  the  Convention  shall  divide  ;  those  in  the 
affirmative  shall  arise  from  their  seats,  and 
afterwards  those  in  the  negative.  The  Presi- 
dent shall  then  arise  and  state  the  decision  of 
the  Convention. 

Fifth.  All  committees  shall  be  appointed  by 
the  President,  unless  otherwise  specially  direc- 
ted by  the  Convention,  in  which  case  they 
shall  be  appointed  by  an  open  vote  of  the  Con- 
vention. 

Sixth.  The  President  shall  examine  and 
correct  the  Journal  before  it  is  read  ;  he  shall 
have  a  general  superintendence  of  the  Hall  ; 
he  shall  have  the  right  to  name  any  member  to 
perform  the  duties  of  the  Chair,  but  such  sub- 
stitution shall  not  extend  beyond  an  adjourn- 
ment. 

Seventh.  In  case  of  any  disturbance  or  dis- 
orderly conduct  in  the  lobby  he  (or  the  Chair- 


13 


man  of  the  committee  of  the  Whole  Conven- 
tion,) shall  have  power  to  order  the  same  to  be 
cleared. 

Eighth.  No  person  shall  be  admitted  within 
the  bar  but  members  and  officers  of  the  Con- 
vention, and  such  other  persons  as  may  be  in- 
vited by  a  member  of  the  Convention  to  a  seat 
within  the  bar. 

OF  DECORUM   AND  DEBATE. 

Ninth.  When  any  member  is  about  to  speak 
in  debate,  or  deliver  any  matfer  to  the  Conven- 
tion, he  shall  rise  from  his  seat  and  respectfully 
address  himself  to  the  President. 

Tenth.  If  any  member,  in  speaking  or  oth- 
erwise, shall  transgress  the  rules  of  the  Con- 
vention, the  President  shall,  or  any  member 
may  call  to  order  ;  in  which  case  the  member 
so  called  to  order  shall  immediately  sit  down, 
unless  permitted  to  explain  ;  and  the  Conven- 
tion, if  appealed  to,  shall  decide  on  the  case, 
but  Avithout  debate  ;  if  there  be  no  appeal,  the 
decision  of  the  Chair  shall  be  submitted  to.  If 
the  decision  be  in  favor  of  the  member  called 
to  order,  he  shall  be  at  liberty  to  proceed  ;  if 
otherwise,  and  the  case  require  it,  he  shall  be 
liable  to  the  censure  of  the  Convention. 

Eleventh.  When  two  or  more  members  shall 
rise  at  once,  the  President  shall  name  the  per- 
son who  is  first  to  speak. 

Twelfth.  No  member  shall  make  use  of  any 
intemperate,  personal,  or  improper  language, 
nor  commit  any  breach  of  order  during  the 
session  of  the  Convention. 

Thirteenth.  No  member  shall  speak  more 
than  twice  on  the  same  question  without  leave 
of  the  Convention  ;  nor  more  than  once,  until 
every  member  choosing  to  speak  shall  have 
spoken. 

Fourteenth.  Whilst  the  President  is  putting 
any  question,  or  addressing  the  Convention,  no 
person  shall  walk  out  of,  or  across  the  Hall  ; 
nor  in  such  case,  or  when  a  member  is  speak- 
ing, shall  entertain  private  discourse  ;  nor 
whilst  a  member  is  speaking,  shall  pass  be- 
tween him  and  the  Chair. 

Fifteenth.  No  member  shall  vote  on  any 
question  in  the  event  of  which  he  is  immedi- 
ately and  particularly  interested,  or  in  any  oth- 
er case  when  he  was  not  present  when  the 
question  was  put,  without  leave  of  the  Con- 
vention. 

Sixteenth.  Upon  a  division  and  count  of  the 
Convention  on  any  question,  no  member  with- 
out the  bar  shall  be  counted. 

Seventeenth.  Every  member  who  shall  be  in 
the  Convention  when  a  question  is  put  shall 
vote,  unless  the  Convention,  for  special  rea- 
son", shall  excuse  him. 

Eighteenth.  All  motions  and  propositions 
shall  be  in  writing,  and  signed  by  the  mover, 
except  motions  to  adjourn,  to  refer,  to  postpone, 
to  print,  to  lay  on  the  table,  or  for  the  previous 
question,  or  leave  of  absence  ;  and  every  mem- 
ber making  a  proposition  shall  in  his  place  read 
it  distinctly  to  the  Convention. 

Nineteenth.  When  a  question  is  made  and 
seconded,  it  shall  be  stated  by  the  President, 
or  being  in  writing,  it  shall  be  handed  to  the 
Secretary,  and  by  him  read  aloud  before  de- 
bated. 


Twentieth.  After  a  motion  is  stated  by  the 
President,  or  read  by  the  Secretary,  it  shall  be 
deemed  to  be  in  possession  of  the  Convention, 
but  may  be  withdrawn  at  any  time  before  a 
decision  or  amendment. 

Twenty-First.  When  a  question  is  under  de- 
bate, no  motion  shall  be  received  but  to  ad- 
journ ;  to  lay  on  the  table  ;  for  the  previous 
question  ;  to  postpone  to  a  day  certain  ;  to 
commit  or  amend  ;  to  postpone  indefinitely  ; 
which  several  motions  shall  have  precedence 
in  the  order  in  which  they  are  arranged  ;  and 
no  motion  to  postpone  to  a  day  certain,  to  com- 
mit, or  postpone  indefinitely,  being  decided, 
shall  be  allowed  again  on  the  same  day,  and  at 
the  same  stage  of  the  proposition, 

Twenty -Second.  A  motion  to  adjourn  shall 
always  be  in  order,  and  shall  be  decided  with- 
out debate. 

Twenty -Third.  All  questions  except  those 
enumerated  in  rule  21st,  shall  be  put  in  the 
order  they  are  moved,  except  that  in  filling  up 
blanks,  the  largest  sum,  and  the  longest  time, 
shall  be  first  put. 

Twenty -Fourth.  The  previous  question  shall 
be  in  this  form,  "  Shall  the  main  question  be 
now  put  V  It  shall  only  be  admitted  when  de- 
manded by  two-thirds  of  the  members  present ; 
and  until  it  is  decided  shall  preclude  all  amend- 
ments and  further  debate  of  the  main  question,  * 
and  must  be  decided  without  debate. 

Twenty-Fifth.  When  the  Convention  ad- 
journs, every  member  shall  keep  his  seat  until 
the  President  leaves  his  seat. 

Twenty-Sixth.  Any  member  may  call  for  a 
division  of  the  question  when  the  sense  will 
admit  of  it. 

Twenty -Seventh.  A  motion  for  commitment 
till  it  is  decided,  shall  preclude  all  amendments 
of  the  main  question. 

Twenty -Eighth.  Motions,  reports  and  other 
business  may  be  committed  at  the  pleasure  of 
the  Convention. 

Twenty-Ninth.  No  new  motion  or  proposition 
on  a  subject  different  from  that  under  consid- 
eration, shall  be  admitted  under  color  of 
amendment,  or  as  a  substitute  for  the  motion 
or  proposition  under  debate. 

Thirtieth.  When  a  motion  or  proposition  has 
been  once  carried  in  the  affirmative  or  negative, 
it  shall  be  in  order  for  any  member  of  the  pre- 
vailing party  to  move  for  the  reconsideration 
thereof  at  any  time  within  three  sitting  days 
after  such  decision  ;  provided,  that  the  propo- 
sition which  may  be  adopted  or  rejected,  shall 
always  be  subject  to  reconsideration  after  two 
days  notice  being  given  thereof. 

Thirty-First.  When  the  reading  of  a  paper 
is  called  for,  and  the  same  is  objected  to  by  any 
member,  it  shall  be  determined  by  a  vote  of  the 
Convention. 

Thirty- Second.  The  unfinished  business  in 
which  the  Convention  was  engaged  at  the  time 
of  the  last  adjournment,  shall  have  the  prefer- 
ence in  the  orders  of  the  day  ;  and  no  motion,  or 
any  other  business,  shall  be  received  without 
special  leave  of  the  Convention,  until  the  for- 
mer is  disposed  of ;  but  any  business  that  is 
made  the  order  of  a  particular  day,  shall  have 
the  preference  over  other  business  on  that  day. 


14 


Thirty-Third.  Any  seven  members  shall  be 
authorized  to  compel  the  attendance  of  absent 
members,  when  there  is  no  quorum  present. 

Thirty -Fourth.  Any  two  members  shall  have 
the  right  to  call  for  the  ayes  and  noes  on  any 
question. 

Thirty -Fifth.  No  member  shall  absent  him- 
self from  the  Convention,  unless  he  have  leave, 
or  be  sick  and  unable  to  attend. 

Thirty-Sixth.  There  shall  be  a  committee  of 
elections,  whose  duty  it  shall  be  to  examine 
and  report  upon  the  credentials  of  the  mem- 
bers returned  to  serve  in  this  Convention. 

Thirty -Seventh.  No  standing  rule  shall  be  re- 
scinded or  altered,  without  one  day's  notice 
being  given  of  the  motion  therefor. 

Thirty-Eighth.  The  Secretary  of  the  Con- 
vention shall  attend  during  its  sessions  ;  shall 
make  out  and  keep  its  Journals ;  seasonably 
record  all  its  proceedings  ;  keep  regular  files  of 
the  papers  ;  attest  all  process  issued  by  the 
Convention,  and  execute  the  commands  of  the 
Convention. 

Thirty -Ninth.  The  Secretary  shall  not  suf- 
fer any  records  or  papers  to  be  taken  out  of  his 
custody  by  any  member  or  other  person. 

Fortieth.  No  standing  rule  or  order  of  the 
Convention  shall  be  suspended  or  dispensed 
with,  without  the  concurrence  of  two-thirds  ot 
the  members  present. 

Forty-First.  Every  member  addressing  the 
Convention,  shall  confine  himself  strictly  to 
the  subject  matter  under  debate. 

Forty- Second.  All  select  committees  shall 
consist  of  three  members,  unless  otherwise  or- 
dered. 

Forty-Third.  All  committees  shall  be  ap- 
pointed by  the  President,  unless  otherwise  or- 
dered. 

Forty-Fourth.  All  questions  relating  to  the 
priority  of  debate,  shall  be  acted  on  without 
debate. 

Forty-Fifth.  No  member  or  other  person 
shall  be  permitted  to  smoke  within  the  hall  or 
lobby  at  any  time  whatever. 

Forty-Sixth.  A  committee  of  three  members 
shall  be  appointed  by  the  President,  who  shall 
scrutinize  and  pass  upon  all  accounts  and  keep 
in  a  book  a  correct  statement  thereof,  and  shall 
take  the  necessary  steps  to  prevent  the  allow- 
ance of  all  improper  and  unjust  claims. 

Forty-Seventh.  In  all  cases  not  provided  for 
in  these  rules,  the  Parliamentary  practice  con- 
tained in  Jefferson's  Manual,  shall  govern  the 
Convention. 

On  motion,  the  Convention  adjourned  until 
three  o'clock  p.  m. 

EVENING  SESSION. 

The  Convention  assembled  pursuant  to  ad- 
journment. 

On  motion,  the  Convention  proceeded  to  the 
election  of  permanent  officers  of  the  Conven- 
tion as  prescribed  by  the  resolution  heretofore 
adopted  ;  whereupon 

Mr.  Broadhead  nominated  for  the  office  of 
President  of  the  Convention,  the  Hon.  Ster- 
ling Price,  of  Chariton  county. 


Mr.  Hatcher  nominated  Hon.  Nathaniel 
W.  Watkins,  of  Cape  Girardeau  county.  No 
other  nominations  having  been  made,  and  the 
roll  of  the  Convention  having  been  called  there 
appeared  for 

Mr.  Price,         75. 

Mr.  Watkins,  15. 

The  members  proceeded  to  vote  as  follows  : 

Eor  Mr.  Price. — Messrs.  Allen,  Bass,  Bast, 
Birch,  Bogy,  Breckinridge,  Broadhead,  Bridge, 
Brown,  Bush,  Calhoun,  Chenault,  Comingo, 
Crawford,  Donnell,  Douglass,  Drake,  Dunn, 
Eitzen,  Erayser,  Elood,  Foster,  Gamble,  Gantt, 
Gravely,  Hall  of  Buchanan,  Hall  of  Randolph, 
Harbin,  Henderson,  Hendrick,  Hitchcock, 
Holmes,  How,  Hudgins,  Irwin,  Isbell,  Jackson, 
Johnson,  Kidd,  Knott,  Linton,  Long,  Marma- 
duke,  Marvin/  Matson,  Maupin,  McClurg, 
McCormack,  McDowell,  Meyer,  Morrow, Moss, 
Norton,  Orr,  Phillips,  Pomeroy,  Ray  Redd, 
Ross,  Rowland,  Sawyer,  Scott,  Shackelford  of 
Howard,  Shackelford  of  St.  Louis,  Sheeley, 
Smith  of  St  Louis,  Stewart,  Tindall,  Turner, 
Waller,  Watkins,  Woolfolk,  Wright,  Vanbus- 
kirk  and  Zimmerman — 75. 

For  Mr.  Watkins  :  Messrs.  Bartlett,  Cayce, 
Collier,  Givens,  Gorin,  Hatcher,  Holt,  Howell, 
Leeper,  Noell,  Pipkin,  Price,  Rankin,  Sayre 
and  Woodson — 15. 

Mr.  Price,  having  received  a  majority  of  all 
the  votes  cast,  was  declared  duly  elected  Presi- 
dent of  the  Convention. 

On  motion  of  Mr.  Hall,  of  Buchanan,  the 
President  appointed  a  committee  of  three,  con- 
sisting of  Messrs.  Hall  of  Buchanan,  Broad- 
head  and  Chenault,  to  wait  upon  Mr.  Price 
and  inform  him  of  his  election. 

The  committee  proceeded  to  discharge  that 
duty,  when  Mr.  Price  came  forward  and  the 
oath  of  office  was  administered  to  him  by  the 
Hon.  George  W.  Miller. 

Whereupon,  having  thanked  the  Convention, 
in  a  short  speech,  he  entered  upon  the  discharge 
of  his  official  duties. 

Nominations  for  Vice  President  being  in  or- 
der, Mr.  Brown  nominated  Hon.  Robert  Wil- 
son, of  Andrew  county. 

There  being  no  other  nominations,  Mr.  Hall 
moved  that  Mr.  Wilson  be  declared  unani- 
mously elected  Vice  President  of  the  Conven- 
tion, which  motion  was  carried,  and  Mr.  Wil- 
son came  forward  and  took  the  oath  of  office. 

Nominations  for  Secretary  being  in  order, 
Mr.  Hall,  of  Buchanan,  nominated  Jeff. 
Thompson,  of  Buchanan  county. 

Mr.  Gamble  nominated  Robert  J.  Lackey, 
of  Cole  county. 

Mr.  Sawyer  nominated  Samuel  A.  Lowe, 
of  Pettis  county.  •> 

Mr.  Welch  nominated  Benjamin  W.  Gro- 
ver,  of  Johnson  county. 


15 


Mr.  Knott  nominated  Mr.  J.  C.  Fox. 
Mr.  Rowland  nominated  Mr.  R.  Cullen,  of 
St.  Louis  county. 

No  other  nominations  being  made,  and  the 
roll  having  been  called,  there  appeared 
For  Mr.  Cullen— 16. 
"      "     Thompson— 12. 
"      "    Lackey— 22. 
'•'      "    Lowe— 26. 
"      "     Grover— 13. 
"      "    Fox — 5. 
No  person  having  received  a  majority  of  all 
the  votes  cast,  the  Convention   proceeded  to 
a  second  ballot,  when,  the  roll  having  been 
called,  there  appeared 
For  Mr.  Cullen— 15. 
"      "    Thompson— 11. 
"     "    Lackey— 27. 
"     u    Lowe— 27. 
"      "     Grover — 11. 
«      "    Fox— 3. 
The  members  present  voted  as  follows  : 

For  Mr.  Cullen  :  Messrs.  Bartlett,  Bast, 
Birch,  Cayce,  Frayser,  Foster,  Hatcher,  Lin- 
ton, Pipkin,  Rowland,  Smith  of  Linn,  Tindall, 
Watkins,  Woolfolk  and  Wright— 15. 

For  Mr.  Thompson  :  Messrs.  Chenault, 
Crawford,  Donnell,  Hall  of  Buchanan,  Hall  of 
Randolph,  Hudgins,  Matson,  Norton,  Stewart, 
Wilson  and  Vanbuskirk — 11. 

For  Mr.  Lackey  :  Messrs.  Bass,  Breckin- 
ridge, Broadhead,  Bridge,  Bush,  Dunn,  Eitzen, 
Flood,  Gamble,  Gantt,  Hitchcock,  Holmes, 
How,  Johnson,  Leeper,  Long,  Maupin,  Mc- 
Clurg,  McCormack,  Mayer,  Moss,  Rankin, 
Ray,  Shackelford  of  St.  Louis,  Smith  of  St. 
Louis,  Turner  and  Mr.  President — 27. 

For  Mr.  Lowe  :  Messrs.  Allen,  Bogy,  Col- 
lier, Douglass,  Drake,  Givens,  Gorin,  Gravely, 
Harbin,  Hendrick,  Holt,  Howell,  Isbell,  Jami- 
son, Kidd,  Marmaduke,  McDowell,  Morrow, 
Orr,  Phillips, Pomeroy,  Redd,Ritchey,  Sawyer, 
Sayre,  Scott  and  Woodson. — 27. 

For  Mr.  Grover  :  Messrs.  Brown,  Calhoun, 
Irwin,  Jackson,  Marvin,  Ross,  Shackelford  of 
Howard,  Sheeley,  Waller,  Welch  and  Zimmer- 
man— 11. 

For  Mr.  Fox :  Messrs.  Henderson,  Knott, 
and  Noell— 3. 

Sick — Mr.  McFerran. 

No  Candidate  having  received  a  majority  of 
all  the  votes  cast,  the  Convention  was  proceed- 
ing to  a  third  ballot,  when 

Mr.  Knott  withdrew  the  name'  of  Mr.  Fox, 
and  Mr.  Hall,  of  Buchanan,withdrew  the  name 
of  Mr.  Thompson. 

The  names  having  been  called  there  ap- 
peared : 

For  Mr.  Cullen  :  Messrs.  Bartlett,  Bast, 
Cayce    Collier,    Donnell,    Frayser,    Hatcher, 


Hudgins,  Irwin,  Leeper,  Linton,  Pipkin,  Row- 
land, Smith  of  Linn,  Stewart  and  Woolfolk— 16. 

For  Mr.  Lackey  :  Messrs.  Birch,  Breckin- 
ridge, Broadhead,  Bridge,  Brown,  Bush,  Dunn, 
Eitzen,  Gamble,  Gantt,  Hall  of  Buchanan,  Hall 
of  Randolph,  Henderson,  Hitchcock,  Holmes, 
How,  Johnson,  Knott,  Long,  Maupin,  McClurg, 
McCormack,  Meyer,  Moss,  Norton,  Rankin, 
Ray,  Shackelford  of  St.  Louis,  Smith  of  St. 
Louis,  Tindall,  Turner,  Wright,  Vanbuskirk 
and  Mr.  President — 34. 

For  Mr.  Lowe  :  Messrs.  Allen,  Bass,  Bogy; 
Chenault,  Comingo,  Crawford,  Douglass, 
Drake,  Flood,  Foster,  Givens,  Gorin,  Gravely, 
Harbin,  Hendrick,  Holt,  Howell,  Isbell,  Kidd, 
Marmaduke,  Matson,  McDowell,  Morrow, 
Noell,  Orr,  Phillips,  Pomeroy,  Redd,  Ritchey, 
Sawyer,  Sayre,  Scott,  Sheeley,  Watkins,  and 
Woodson — 35. 

For  Mr.  Grover  :     Messrs.  Calhoun,  Jack, 
son,  Jamison,   Marvin,   Ross,    Shackelford  o,. 
Howard,  Waller,  Welch,  Wilson  and  Zimmer 
man — 10. 

No  candidates  having  received  a  majority  of 
all  the  vates  cast  the  Convention  proceeded  to 
the  fourth  ballot,  when 

Mr.  Rowland  withdrew  the  name  of  Mr. 
Cullen. 

Mr.  Welch  withdrew  the  name  of  Mr. 
Grover. 

The  roll  having  been  called  there  appeared : 

For  Mr.  Lackey — 44, 

For  Mr.  Lowe — 51. 

The  members  present  voted  as  follows  : 

For  Mr.  Lackey  :  Messrs.  Birch,  Breckin- 
ridge. Broadhead,  Bridge,  Brown,  Bush,  Don- 
nell, Dunn,  Eitzen,  Foster,  Gamble,  Gantt, 
Hall  of  Buchanan,  Hall  of  Randolph,  Hender- 
son, Hitchcock,  Holmes,  How,  Hudgins,  Irwin, 
Jackson,  Johnson,  Knott,  Linton,  Long,  Mau- 
pin, McClurg,  Meyer,  Moss,  Norton  Rankin, 
Ray,  Shackelford  of  Howard,  Shackelford  of 
St.  Louis,  Smith  of  Linn,  Smith  of  St.  Louis, 
Stewart,  Tindall,  Turner,  Wilson,  Woolfolk, 
Wright,  Vanbuskirk  and  Mr.  President — 44. 

For  Mr.  Lowe  :  Messrs.  Allen,  Bartlett* 
Bass,  Bast,  Bogy,  Calhoun,  Cayce,  Chenault, 
Collier,  Comingo,  Crawford,  Douglass,  Drake, 
Frayser,  Flood,  Givens,  Gorin,  Gravely,  Har- 
bin, Hatcher,  Hendrick,  Holt,  Howell,  Isbell? 
Jamison,  Kidd,  Leeper,  Marmaduke,  Marvin, 
Matson,  McCormack,  McDowell,  Morrow,  No- 
ell, Orr,  Phillips,  Pipkin,  Pomeroy,  Redd,  Rit- 
chey, Ross,  Rowland,  Sawyer,  Sayre,  Scott, 
Sheeley,  Waller,  Watkins,  Welch,  Woodson 
and  Zimmerman — 51. 

Mr.  Lowe,  having  received  a  majority  of 
all  the  votes  cast,  was  declared  duly  elected 
Secretary  of  this  Convention,  and  came  for- 
ward; was  sworn  in  by  Hon.  George  W.  Miller, 
and  entered  upon  the  discharge  of  his  officia 
duties. 

Nominations  for  Assistant  Secretary  being 
next  in  order  : 


16 


Mr.  Knott  nominated  James  E.  McHenry. 

Mr.  Orr  nominated  L.  I).  Shellady. 

Mr.  Irwin  nominated  A.  L.  Gilstrap. 

Mr.  Henderson  nominated  Robert  A.  Camp- 
hell. 

Mr.  Douglas  nominated  John  T.  Bankhead. 

Mr.  Holt  nominated  Lyle  Singleton. 

Mr.  Long  nominated  David  R.  Risley. 

Mr.  Chenault  nominated  Richard  Kerr. 

No  other  nominations  having  been  made  the 
roll  was  called  when  there  appeared  : 

For  Mr.  McHenry — 13  votes. 
"       "    Shellady— 12  votes. 
"      "    Gilstrap — 24  votes. 
"       "    Campbell— 28  votes. 
"       "    Bankhead — 6  votes. 
"      "    Singleton — 2  votes. 
"      "   Risley— 1  vote. 
"       "    Kerr — 8  votes. 

The  members  present  voted  as  follows  : 

For  Mr.  McHenry  :  Messrs.  Bass,  Birch, 
Flood,  Hendrick,  Hudgins,  Kidd,  Knott,  Mar 
vin,  Maupin,  Ray,  Shackelford  of  Howard, 
Stewart  and  Mr.  President — 13. 

For  Mr.  Shellady  :  Messrs.  Bartlett,  Hat- 
cher, Jamison,  Johnson,  Leeper,  McClurg, 
Morrow,  Noell,  Orr,  Ross,  Scott  and  Turner-12. 

For  Mr.  Gilstrap  :  Messrs.  Allen,  Brown, 
Comingo,  Donnell,  Dunn,  Foster,  Givens, 
Gorin,  Hall  of  Buchanan,  Hall  of  Randolph, 
Irwin,  Jackson,  McCormack,  Meyer,  Moss, 
Norton,  Rowland,  Sayre,  Smith  of  Linn,  Smith 
of  St.  Louis,  Tindall,  Wilson,  Woolfolk  and 
Vanbuskirk — 24. 

For  Mr.  Campbell  :  Messrs.  Bogy,  Breck- 
inridge, Broadhead,  Bridge,  Bush,  Calhoun, 
Cayce,  Collier,  Eitzen,  Frayser,  Gantt,  Hen- 
derson, Hitchcock  Holmes,  How,  Howell, 
Isbell,  Linton,  Matson,  Rankin,  Redd,  Shackel- 
ford of  St.  Louis,  Sheeley,  Waller,  Watkins, 
Welch,  Woodson  and  Zimmerman — 28. 

For  Mr.  Bankhead  :  Messrs.  Douglass, 
Drake,  Marmaduke,  Phillips,  Sawyer  and 
Wright— 6. 

For  Mr.  Singleton  :  Messrs.  Holt  and 
Pomeroy — 2. 

For  Mr.  Kerr:  Messrs.  Bast,  Chenault, 
Crawford,  Gravely,  Harbin,  McDowell,  Pipkin 
and  Ross — 8. 

For  Mr.  Risley  :     Mr.  Long. 

No  Candidate  having  received  a  majority  of 
all  the  votes  cast  the  Convention  proceeded  to 
the  second  ballot,  when 

Mr.  Douglas  withdrew  the  name  of  Mr. 
Bankhead,  and  Mr.  Holt  withdrew  the  name 
of  Mr.  Singleton. 

The  roll  having  been  called  there  appeared  : 

For  Mr.  McHenry — 14. 
"      "    Shellady— 9. 
"       "    Gilstrap— 33. 
"      «    Campbell— 33. 


For  Mr.  Risley— 2. 
"       «•    Kerr— 4. 

All  the  members  present  voted  as  follows  : 

For  Mr.  McHenry  :  Messrs.  Bass,  Bast, 
Hendrick,  Holt,  Kidd,  Knott,  Marmaduke, 
Marvin,  Maupin,  Phillips,  Pomeroy,  Sawyer, 
Shackelford  of  Howard,  and  Mr.  President-14. 

For  Mr.  Shellady  :  Messrs.  Jamison, 
Johnson,  Leeper,  McClurg,  Morrow,  Orr,  Ross, 
Scott  and  Turner — 9. 

For  Mr.  Gilstrap  :  Messrs.  Allen,  Bartlett* 
Birch,  Brown,  Comingo,  Donnell,  Dunn,  Fos- 
ter, Gamble,  Givens,  Gorin,  Hall  of  Buchanan, 
Hall  of  Randolph,  Harbin,  Hatcher,  Hudgins, 
Irwin,  Jackson,  McCormack,  Mayer,  Moss, 
Noell,  Norton,  Pipkin,  Ray,  Ritchie,  Rowland, 
Sayre,  Smith  of  Linn,  Tindall,  Wilson,  Wool- 
folk  and  Vanbuskirk — 33. 

For  Mr.  Campbell  :  Messrs.  Bogy,  Breck- 
inridge, Broadhead,  Bridge,  Bush,  Calhoun, 
Cayce,  Collier,  Drake,  Eitzen,  Frayser,  Flood, 
Gantt,  Henderson,  Hitchcock,  Holmes,  How, 
Howell,  Isbell,  Linton,  Matson,  Rankin,  Redd, 
Shackelford  of  St.  Louis,  Sheeley,  Smith  of 
St.  Louis,  Stewart,  Waller,  Watkins,  Welch, 
Woodson,  Wright  and  Zimmerman — 33. 

For  Mr.  Risley  :  Messrs.  Long  and  Doug- 
lass— 2. 

For  Mr.  Kerr  :  Messrs.  Chenault,  Crawford, 
Gravely  and  McDowell — 4. 

Sick — Mr.  McFerran 

No  candidate  having  received  a  majority  of 
all  the  votes  cast,  the  Convention  proceeded  to 
a  third  ballot,  when 

Mr.  Long  withdrew  the  name  of  Mr.  Risley, 
and  Mr.  Chenault  withdrew  the  name  of 
Mr.  Kerr. 

The  roll  having  been  called  there  appeared  : 

For  Mr.  McHenry— 9. 
"       "    Shellady— 9. 
"       "    Campbell— 42. 
"      "    Gilstrap— 33. 

All  the  members  present  voted  as  follows  . 

For  Mr.  McHenry  :  Messrs.  Bass,  Bast, 
Hendrick,  Holt,  Kidd,  Knott,  Pomeroy, 
Shackelford  of  Howard  and  Mr.  President — 9. 

For  Mr,  Shellady  :  Messrs.  Jamison, 
Johnson,  Leeper,  McClurg,  Morrow,  Orr,  Ross, 
Scott  and  Turner — 9. 

For  Mr.  Gilstrap  :  Messrs.  Allen,  Bart- 
lett, Brown,  Birch,  Chenault,  Comingo,  Craw- 
ford, Donnell,  Dunn,  Foster,  Givens,  Gorin, 
Gravely,  Hall  of  Buchanan,  Hall  of  Randolph, 
Harbin,  Irwin,  Jackson,  Marvin,  McDowell, 
Moss,  Noell,  Norton,  Pipkin,  Ray,  Ritchey, 
Rowland,  Sayre,  Smith  of  Linn,  Tindall,  Wil- 
son, Woolfolk  and  Vanbuskirk — 33. 

For  Mr.  Campbell  :  Messrs.  Bogy,  Breck- 
inridge, Broadhead,  Bridge,  Bush,  Calhoun, 
Cayce,  Collier,  Douglass,  Drake,  Eitzen,  Fray- 
ser, Flood,  Gantt,  Hatcher,  Henderson,  Hitch- 
cock, Holmes,  How,  Howell,  Isbell,  Linton, 
Long,  Marmaduke,  Matson,  Maupin,  McCor- 
mack, Meyer,  Philips,  Rankin,  Redd,  Sawyer, 
Shackelford  of  St.  Louis,    Sheeley,    Smith  of 


17 


St.   Louis,   Stewart,   Waller,  Watkins,  Welch, 
Woodson,  Wright  and  Zimmerman — 42. 

Sick— Mr.  McFerran. 

No  Candidate  having  received  a  majority 
of  all  the  votes  cast  the  Convention  proceeded 
to  the  fourth  hallot. 

Mr.  Knott  withdrew  the  name  of  Mr. 
McHenry,  and  Mr.  Orr  withdrew  the  name 
of  Mr.  Shellady. 

The  roll  having  heen  called  there  appeared  : 

For  Mr.  Campbell— 58. 
"       "    Gilstrap— 35. 

All  of  the  members  present  voted  as  fol- 
lows : 

For  Mr.  Gilstrap:  Messrs.  Allen,  Bast, 
Birch,  Brown,  Chenault,  Comingo,  Crawford, 
Donnell,  Dunn,  Foster,  Givens,  Gorin,  Gravely^ 
Hall  of  Buchanan,  Hall  of  Randolph,  Harbin, 
Hendrick,  Irwin,  Jackson,  Knott,  Marvin, 
McDowell,  Moss,  Norton,  Pipkin,  Ray,  Rit- 
chey,  Rowland,  Sayre,  Shackelford  of  Howard, 
Smith,  Tindall,  Wilson,  Woolfolk  and  Vanbus- 
kirk— 35. 

For  Mr.  Campbell:  Messrs.  Bartlett, 
Bass,  Bogy,  Breckinridge,  Broadhead,  Bridge, 
Bush,  Calhoun,  Cayce,  Collier,  Douglass, 
Drake,  Eitzen,  Frayser,  Flood,  Gantt,  Hat- 
cher, Henderson,  Hitchcock,  Holmes,  Holt, 
How,  Howell,  Isbell,  Jamison,  Johnson,  Kidd, 
Leeper,  Linton,  Long,  Marmaduke,  Matson' 
Maupin,  McClurg,  McCormack,  Meyer,  Mor- 
row, Noell,  Orr,  Phillips,  Pomeroy,  Rankin, 
Redd,  Ross,  Sawyer,  Scott,  Shackelford  of 
St.  Louis,  Sheeley,  Smith  of  St.  Louis,  Stew- 
art, Turner,  Waller,  Watkins,  Welch,  Wood- 
son, Wright,  Zimmerman  and  Mr.  President 
— 5b. 

Absent— Messrs.  Gamble  and  Hudgins. 
Sick— Mr.  McFerran. 

Mr.  Campbell  having  received  a  majority 
of  all  the  votes  cast  was  declared  duly  elected 
Assistant  Secretary  of  the  Convention.      He 
then  came  forward  and  received  the  oath  of 
office,  administered  by  the  Hon.  G.  W.  Miller, 
and  entered  upon  the  discharge  of  his  duties. 
Nominations  for  Doorkeeper  being  in  order 
Mr.  Brown  nominated  C.  B.  Anderson. 
"    Pomeroy        "        John  E.  Davis. 
«    Harbin  «        Andrew  J.  Russell. 

'    Flood  "        Thomas  J.  Ferguson 

"    Bartlett       "        John  J.  Jackson. 
"    Stewart        "        Wm.  Vanover. 
1    Wright  «        McDaniel  Dorris. 

The  roll  having  been  called  there  appeared 
For  Mr.  Dorris— 8. 
"      "    Russell— 11. 
u      "    Anderson — 28. 
"      "    Davis— 10. 
"      "    Ferguson— 12. 
"      "    Jackson — 8. 
"      "    Vanover— 16. 


All  the  members  present  voted  as  follows  : 

For  Mr.  Davis:  Messrs.  Allen,  Cayce, 
Givens,  Holt,  Maupin,  McClurg,  Meyer,  Pome- 
roy, Rankin  and  Sayre — 10. 

For  Mr.  Dorris  :  Messrs.  Hall  of  Buchan- 
an, Hall  of  Randolph,  Hitchcock,  Knott,  Long 
Norton,  Ray  and  Wright — 8. 

For  Mr.  Russell  :  Messrs.  Bast,  Calhoun, 
Chenault,  Crawford,  Donnell,  Harbin,  Mc- 
Dowell, Redd,  Ritchey,  Zimmerman  and  Mr. 
President — 11. 

For  Mr.  Anderson  :  Messrs.  Birch,  Brown 
Comingo,  Douglass,  Drake,  Gravely,  Hender- 
son, Hendrick,  Jackson,  Jamison,  Johnson, 
Kidd,  Marmaduke,  Marvin,  Morrow,  Moss, 
Orr,  Phillips,  Ross,  Sawyer,  Scott,  Shackelford 
of  Howard,  Shackelford  of  St.  Louis,  Tind- 
all, Turner,  Waller,  Welch  and  Woolfolk— 28. 

For  Mr.  Ferguson  :  Messrs.  Bass,  Breck- 
inridge, Broadhead,  Bridge,  Eitzen,  Flood, 
Gantt,  How,  Howell,  Isbell,  Sheeley  and 
Woodson— 12. 

For  Mr.  Jackson  :  Messrs.  Bartlett,  Bogy, 
Collier,  Hatcher,  Leeper,  Matson,  Noell  and 
Pipkin — 8. 

For  Mr.  Vanover  :  Messrs.  Bush,  Dunn, 
Frayser,  Foster,  Gorin,  Holmes,  Hudgins,  Ir- 
win, McCormack,  Rowland,  Smith  of  Linn, 
Smith  of  St.  Louis,  Stewart,  Watkins,  Wilson, 
and  Vanbuskirk — 16. 

No  candidate  having  received  a  majority  of 
all  the  votes  cast  the  Convention  proceeded  to 
a  second  ballot, 

When  there  appeared : 
For  Mr.  Dorris— 2. 
"      "    Russell— 6. 
"      "    Anderson— 52. 
«       «    Davis— 6. 
"      "    Ferguson — 5. 
"      "    Jackson— 9. 
"       "    Vanover— 12. 
All  the  members  present  voting  as  follows  : 
For     Mr.    Dorris  :       Messrs.    Long     and 
Wright— 2. 

For  Mr.  Russell:  Messrs.  Chenault. 
Crawford,  Harbin,  Hitchcock,  McDowell  and 
Ritchey— 6. 

For  Mr.  Anderson  :  Messrs.  Birch,  Breck- 
inridge, Bridge,  Brown,  Bush,  Calhoun,  Co- 
mingo, Donnell,  Douglass,  Drake,  Eitzen, 
Frayser  Gantt,  Gravely,  Hall  of  Buchanan, 
Henderson,  Hendrick,  Hoav,  Howell,  Isbell, 
Jackson,  Jamison,  Johnson,  Kidd,  Knott,  Lin- 
ton, Marmaduke,  Marvin,  Matson,  Maupin, 
McCormack,  Morrow,  Moss,  Norton,  Philips, 
Ray,  Redd,  Ross,  Sawyer,  Sayre,  Scott, 
Shackelford  of  Howard,  Shackelford  of  St. 
Louis,  Smith  of  St.  Louis,  Tindall,  Turner, 
Waller,  Welch,  Woolfolk,  Zimmerman  and 
Mr.  President— 52. 

For  Mr.  Davis:  Messrs.  Givens,  Holt, 
McClurg,  Meyer,  Pomeroy  and  Rankin— 6. 

For  Mr.  Ferguson  :  Messrs.  Bass,  Bast, 
Flood,  Sheeley  and  Woodson — 5. 


18 


For  Mr.  Jackson  :  Messrs.  Jackson,  Bart- 
lett,  Bogy,  Collier,  Hatcher,  Leeper,  Noell,  Orr, 
Pipkin  and  Watkins — 9. 

For  Mr.  Vanover  :  Messrs.  Bartlett,  Dunn, 
Foster,  Gorin,  Holmes,  Hudgins,  Irwin,  Row- 
land, Smith  of  Linn,  Stewart,  Wilson  and 
Vanbuskirk — 12. 

Mr.  Anderson  having  received  a  majority 
of  all  the  votes  cast,  was  declared  duly  elected 
Doorkeeper  of  the  Convention.  He  came 
forward,  was  sworn,  and  entered  upon  the  dis- 
charge of  the  duties  of  his  office. 

Mr.  Hall,  of  Randolph,  offered  the  follow- 
ing resolution  : 

Resolved,  That  when  this  Convention  ad- 
journs to-day,  it  will  adjourn  to  meet  at  the 
Mercantile  Library  Hall,  in  the  city  of  St. 
Louis,  on  Monday  next,  at  10  o'clock,  A.  M. 

Mr.  Harbin  moved  to  lay  the  resolution 
upon  the  table,  which  motion  was  decided  in 
the  negative  by  the  following  vote,  the  ayes 
and  noes  having  been  demanded  : 

Ayes — Messrs.  Bass,  Bast,  Bogy,  Calhoun, 
Cayce,  Chenault,  Crawford,  Douglass,  Drake, 
Frayser,  Flood,  Foster,  Givens,  Gorin,  Gravely, 
Harbin,  Hendrick,  Jackson,  Jamison,  John- 
son, Knott,  McClurg,  McDowell,  Morrow, 
Orr,  Rankin,  Ray,  Ritchey,  Ross,  Sayre,  Scott, 
Shackelford  of  Howard,  Stewart,  Waller, 
Welch,  Wilson,  Woodson  and  Zimmerman — 38. 
Noes — Messrs.  Allen,  Bartlett,  Breckinridge, 
Broadhead,  Bridge,  Brown,  Bush,  Collier,  Co- 
mingo,  Donnell,  Dunn,  Eitzen,  Gantt,  Hall  of 
Buchanan,  Hall  of  Randolph,  Hatcher,  Hen- 
derson, Hitchcock,  Holmes,  Holt,  How,  Howell, 
Hudgins,  Irwin,  Isbell,  Kidd,  Leeper,  Linton, 
Long,  Marmaduke,  Marvin,  Matson,  Maupin, 
McCormack,  Meyer,  Moss,  Noell,  Norton,  Phil- 
lips, Pipkin,  Pomeroy,  Redd,  Rowland,  Saw- 
yer, Shackelford  of  St.  Louis,  Sheeley,  Smith 
of  Linn,  Smith  of  St.  Louis,  Tindall,  Turner, 
Watkins,  Woolfolk,  Wright,  Vanbuskirk  and 
Mr.  President — 55. 


Absent— Messrs.  Birch  and  Gamble. 

Sick — Mr.  McFerran. 

Mr.  Knott  moved  a  postponement  of  the 
further  consideration  of  the  resolution  until 
Monday  next,  which  motion  was  decided  in  the 
negative. 

The  resolution  was  then  adopted. 

The  President  of  the  Convention  laid  be- 
fore the  Convention  a  communication  from 
Luther  J.  Glenn,  enclosing  his  commission  as 
a  Commissioner  from  the  State  of  Georgia  to 
the  Convention  or  Legislature  of  the  State  of 
Missouri. 

On  motion  of  Mr.  Hall,  of  Buchanan,  the 
communication  was  laid  upon  the  table  and  or- 
dered to  be  printed. 

Mr.  Wilson  offered  the  following,  which  was 
adopted  : 

Resolved,  That  the  Rev.  Andrew  Monroe  be 
requested  to  act  as  Chaplain  to  this  Conven- 
tion. 

Mr.  Wilson  offered  the  following  resolu- 
tion, which  was  passed  over  informally  : 

Resolved,  That  a  committee  of  three  be  ap- 
pointed to  contract  with  two  persons  duly  qual- 
ified to  report  the  debates  and  proceedings  of 
this  Convention. 

Mr.  Birch  offered  the  following  resolution, 
which  was  adopted : 

Resolved,  That  the  thanks  of  this  Convention 
are  due  to  Gen.  James  L.  Minor,  for  his  cour- 
teous compliance  with  its  request  to  act  as  its 
Secretary  during  its  organization,  and  for  the 
prompt  and  able  manner  in  which  he  discharged 
that  duty. 

On  motion  of  Mr.  Hall,  of  Buchanan,  the 
Convention  adjourned. 


THIRD 


The  Convention  assembled  in  the  Mercantile 
Library  Hall,  in  the  city  of  St.  Louis,  pursuant 
to  the  resolution  of  adjournment  adopted  on 
Friday  last,  and  was  opened  with  prayer  by 
the  Chaplain  of  the  Convention,  the  Rev.  An- 
drew Monroe. 

The  Journal  was  read  by  the  Secretary  and 
approved. 

The  President  laid  before  the  Convention 
the  following  communication,  which  was  re- 
ceived : 


DA.Y, 

MONDAY,  MARCH  4,  1861. 

St.  Louis,  March  4,  1861. 
To  the  Convention  of  the  State  of  Missouri  : 

Gentlemen  :  I  have  the  honor  to  inform 
you  that  I  am  authorized  by  the  Board  of  Di- 
rectors of  the  Law  Library  Association  of  St. 
Louis,  to  tender  to  the  officers  and  members  of 
your  body  free  access  to  the  library  of  the  As- 
sociation during  the  sittings  of  the  Convention. 
The  regulations  of  the  Association  (which  the 
Board  have  no  power  to  dispense  with,)  do  not 
allow  the  books  to  be  taken  out  of  the  Court 


eg  n 


House,  but  so  far  as  the  use  of  the  same  in  the 
library  is  concerned,  every  facility  and  conve- 
nience in  the  power  of  the  Board  will  be  cheer- 
fully afforded  The  library  room,  which  is  in 
the  second  story  of  the  south  wing  of  the  Court 
House,  is  kept  open  during  the  day  and  until 
10  o'clock  at  night. 

I  have  the  honor  to  be, 

Very  respectfully,  your  ob't  serv't, 

CHAS.  D.  DRAKE,  Pres't. 

Also  the  following  communication,  which 
was  also  received  and  read : 

St.  Louis  Mercantile  Library, 
March  4,  1861. 
To  the  Hon.  Sterling  Price, 
President  of  the  General  Convention 

of  the  State  of  Missouri : 
Sir  :  I  am  instructed  by  the  Board  of  Di- 
rectors of  this  institution  to  offer,  through  you, 
to  the  members  of  the  honorable  body  over 
which  you  preside,  the  privilege  of  our  library 
and  reading  room,  a  duty  which  I  perform  with 
the  greatest  pleasure. 

I  have  the  honor  to  be 

Your  very  ob't  serv't, 

ALFRED  CARR, 
Pres.  St.  Louis  Mer.  Lib.  Association. 
Alexander  W.  Doniphan,  member  elect  from 
the  Thirteenth  Senatorial  District,  and  James 
McFerran,  member  elect  from  the  Ninth  Sena- 
torial District,  as  delegates  to  this  Convention, 
came  forward  and  were  sworn  in  as  members 
by  Hon.  Samuel  M.  Breckinridge,  Judge  of 
the  St.  Louis  Circuit  Court. 

Mr.  Gamble  offered  the  following  resolu- 
tions : 

Resolved,  That  a  committee  of  seven  be  ap- 
pointed, to  be  called  the  Committee  on  Federal 
Relations,  which  shall  consider  and  report  on 
the  relations  now  existing  between  the  Gov- 
ernment of  the  United  States,  the  Government 
and  people  of  the  different  States,  and  the  Gov- 
ernment and  people  of  this  State. 

Resolved,  That  all  propositions  or  resolutions 
that  may  be  moved  by  any  member  of  the  Con- 
vention, touching  the  relations  of  Missouri  with 
the  Federal  Government,  shall  be  referred  to 
the  Committee  on  Federal  Relations. 

Mr.  Birch  offered  the  following  as  a  substi- 
tute for  the  resolutions  offered  by  Mr.  Gamble : 

Ordered,  that  a  committee  be  appointed  to 
take  into  consideration  the  relations  between 
the  Government  of  the  United  States,  the  peo- 
ple and  Government  of  the  different  States, 
and  the  Government  and  people  of  the  State 
of  Missouri,  and  to  report  to  this  Convention 


such  an  exposition  and  address  as  shall  proba- 
bly denote  the  views  and  opinions  of  those  who 
look  to  the  amicable  restoration  of  the  Federal 
Union  upon  such  adjustment  of  the  past,  and 
such  guaranties  for  the  future,  as  shall  render 
it  fraternal,  permanent,  and  enduring. 

Mr.  Knott  offered  the  following,  as  an 
amendment  to  the  substitute  : 

Amend  by  adding  "  and  all  propositions 
and  resolutions  involving  the  relations  of  this 
State  to  the  General  Government,  and  the  oth- 
er States  of  the  Confederacy,  shall  be  referred 
to  said  committee." 

The  question  being  upon  the  adoption  of  the 
amendment  to  the  substitute,  it  was  decided  in 
the  negative. 

The  question  recurring  upon  the  adoption  of 
the  substitute,  it  was  also  decided  in  the  nega- 
tive. 

Mr.  Gantt  then  offered  the  following  amend- 
ment to  the  original  resolutions  : 

Amend  by  inserting  "  thirteen  "  in  place  of 
"  seven." 

Mr.  Ritchey  offered  the  following  amend- 
ment to  the  amendment,  as  follows  : 

Amend  by  striking  out  "  thirteen,"  and  in- 
serting "one,  to  be  chosen  from  each  Senato- 
rial district,  to  be  agreed  on  by  the  delegation 
from  said  district."  Which  amendment  was 
rejected. 

The  original  amendment  was  then  adopted, 
and  the  question  recurring  upon  the  passage  of 
the  resolutions,  as  amended,  it  was  decided  in 
the  affirmative. 

Mr.  Dunn  offered  the  following  resolution, 
which  was  adopted : 

Resolved,  That  William  M.  Burris  be,  and  he 
is  hereby  appointed  page  of  this  Convention. 

Mr.  Long  offered  the  following,  which  was 
adopted: 

Resolved,  That  the  vacant  seats  inside  the 
bar  be  tendered  to  the  use  of  the  ladies  who 
may  be  pleased  to  attend  the  session  of  this 
Convention. 

Mr.  Pomeroy  offered  the  following  : 

Resolved,  That  a  committee  of  three  be  ap- 
pointed to  wait  upon  the  Hon.  Luther  J.  Glenn, 
Commissioner  from  the  State  of  Georgia,  and 
to  invite  him  to  occupy  a  seat  within  the  bar, 
and  also  to  request  him  to  signify  at  what 
time  it  will  suit  his  convenience  to  communi- 
cate his  message  to  the  Convention. 

Mr.  Wright  offered  the  following  substi- 
tute for  the  resolution  : 

Resolved,  That  a  committee  of  three  be  ap- 
pointed by  the  Chair,  to  take  into  considera- 


20 


tion  the  communication  received  from  the  Hon. 
Luther  J.'  Glenn,  Commissioner  from  our  sis- 
ter State  of  Georgia,  and  to  report  to  this 
body  what  action  shall  be  taken  thereon. 

Mr.  Redd  offered  the  following,  as  an  amend- 
ment  to  the  substitute : 

Resolved,  That  a  committee  be  appointed  to 
wait  upon  the  Commissioner  accredited  to  this 
State,  by  the  State  of  Georgia,  and  to  inform 
him  that  this  Convention  will  receive  him  at 
12  o'clock,  this  day,  and  hear  what  he  may 
choose  to  communicate  upon  the  subject  of 
his  mission. 

Mr.  Hall,  of  Buchanan,  moved  the  previous 
question,  which  motion  was  sustained.  The 
question  being,  "  Shall  the  main  question  be 
now  put?"  it  was  decided  in  the  affirmative. 

The  question  being  the  adoption  of  the 
amendment  to  the  substitute,  it  was  adopted 
by  the  following  vote,  the  ayes  and  noes  be- 
ing demanded  by  Mr.  Doniphan : 

Ayes— Messrs.  Allen,  Bartlett,  Bass,  Bast, 
Birch,  Brown,  Calhoun,  Cayce,  Chenault, 
Collier,  Comingo,  Crawford,  Doniphan,  Don- 
nell,  Douglass,  Drake,  Dunn,  Frayser,  Flood, 
Gamble,  Givens,  Gorin,  Gravely,  Hall  of  Bu- 
chanan, Harbin,  Hatcher,  Holt,  Howell,  Hud- 
gins,  Kid.i,  Knott,  Marmaduke,  Marvin,  Mat- 
son,  McCormack,  McDowell,  MoFcrran,  Moss, 
Noel,  Norton,  Phillips,  Pipkin,  Rankin,  Ray, 
Redd,  Ritchey,  Ross,  Sawyer,  Sayre,  Shack- 
elford of  Howard,  Mieeley,  Stuart,  Tindall, 
Waller,  Watkins,  Welch,  Wilson,  Woodson, 
Woolfolk,  Vanbuskirk,  Zimmerman  and  Mr. 
President — 62 

Noes — Messrs.  Bogy,  Breckinridge,  Broad- 
head,  Bridge,  Bush,  Eitzen,  Foster,  Gantt, 
Hall  of  Randolph,  Henderson,  Hendrick, 
Hitchcock,  Holmes,  How,  Irwin,  Isbell,  Jack- 
son, Jamison,  Johnson,  Lecper,  Linton,  Long, 
Maupin,  McClurg,  Meyer,  Morrow,  Orr, 
Pomeroy,  Rowland,  Scott,  Shackelford  of  St. 
Louis,  Smith  of  Linn,  Smith  of  St.  Louis, 
Turner  and  Wright — 35. 

The  President  appointed  upon  said  com- 
mittee, Messrs.  Pomeroy,  Wright  and  Pipkin, 
who  conducted  Mr.  Glenn  inside  of  the  bar  ; 
he  was  there  introduced  to  the  Convention  by 
the  President,  and  addressed  them  upon  the 
subject  of  his  mission. 

On  motion,  the    resolution,  for  the  appoint- 
ment  of   two   reporters,    introduced    by   Mr. 
Wilson,  on  Friday,  was  taken  up  and  adopted. 
The  President  appointed  upon  said  com- 
mittee,   Messrs.    Wilson,    Birch  and    Hall  of 
Randolph. 
Mr.  Foster  offered  the  following : 
Resolved,  That  W.  D.  Bartlett  be,  and  he  is 
hereby,  declared  to  be  the  sergeant-at-arms  for 
this  Convention. 


Mr.  Sheeley  offered  the  following  as  a  sub- 
stitute, which  was   adopted  : 

Resolved,  That  this  Convention  will  proceed 
to  elect  a  sergeant-at-arms  for  the  Convention. 
Nominations  then  being  declared  in  order, 
Mr.   Foster   nominated  L.  D.  Bartlett,    of 
Macon  county. 

Mr.  Collier  nominated  John  Stove,  of  St. 
Louis  county. 

Mr.  Flood  nominated  Dr.  Martin,  of  Calla- 
way county. 

Mr.  Long  nominated  Calvin  Parrish,  of  St. 
Louis  county. 

Mr.  Brown  nominated  B.  W.  G rover,  of 
Johnson  county. 

There  being  no  other  nomination,  the  Sec- 
retary proceeded  to  call  the  roll,  when  there 
appeared  : 

For  Mr.  Stove — 1. 
"       "    Bartlett— 07. 
"       "     Martin— 14. 
"       "     Parrish— 2. 
"     Grover— 38. 
All  the  members  present,  voted  as  follows  : 
For   Mr.  Bartlett— Messrs.  Bartlett,    Birch, 
Bogy,  Bush,  Cayce,  Foster,  Gamble,  Givens, 
Gorin,  Gravely,  Hall    of    Randolph,    Harbin, 
Hatcher,  Hendrick,    Hitchcock,    Holmes,    Ir- 
win, Isbell,  Jackson,  Johnson,  Knott,  Leeper, 
McClurg,  McCormack,    Morrow,    Noell,  Ran- 
kin, Redd,  Rowland,  Sawyer,  Scott,  Smith  of 
Linn,  Stewart,  Watkins,    Woolfolk,  and    Mr. 
President — 87. 

For  Mr.  Stove— Mr.  Collier— 1. 
For    Mr.    Martin — Messrs.     Allen,     Bass, 
Breckinridge,    Broadhead,    Bridge,     Calhoun, 
Chenault,  Crawford,  Eitzen,  Flood,  Henderson, 
How,  Linton,  McFerran  and  Woodson — 14. 

For  Mr.  Parrish— Messrs.  Gantt  and  Long 
—2. 

For  Mr.  Grover — Messrs.  Bast,  Brown,  Co- 
mingo, Doniphan,  Donnell,  Douglass,  Drake, 
Dunn,  Frayser,  Hall  of  Buchanan,  Holt,  How- 
ell, Hudgins,  Jamison,  Kidd,  Marmaduke, 
Marvin,  Matson,  Maupin,  McDowell,  Meyer, 
Moss,  Norton,  Orr,  Phillips,  Ray,  Ritchey, 
Ross,  Sawyer,  Shackelford  of  Howard,  Shack- 
elford of  St.  Louis,  Sheeley,  Smith  of  St.  Lou 
is,  Tindall,  Waller,  Welch,  Vanbuskirk  and 
Zimmerman — 38. 

No  candidate  having  received  a  majority  of 
all  the   votes  cast,  the  Convention  proceeded 
to  a   second   ballot,  when    Mr.  Holmes  with- 
drew the  name  of  Mr.  Martin,  and   Mr.  Col- 
lier withdrew  the    name  of    Mr.  Stove.     The 
roll  having  been  called,  there  appeared 
For  Mr.  Bartlett— 39. 
"      "     Grover — 54. 
All  the  members  voted  as  follows  : 
For  Mr.  Bartlett — Messrs.  Allen,  Bartlett, 
Birch,  Bogy,  Broadhead,  Bush,    Cayce,    Col- 


21 


Her,  Eitzcn,  Foster,  Gantt,  Givens,  Gorin, 
Gravely,  Hall  of  Randolph,  Hatcher,  Hen- 
drick,  Hitchcock,  How,  Irwin,  Isbell,  Jackson, 
Johnson,  Knott,  Leeper,  McClurg,  McCor- 
raack,  McFerran,  Morrow,  Noell,  Rankin, 
Rowland,  Sayre,  Scott,  Smith  of  Linn,  Tur- 
ner, Watkins,  Woolfolk  and  Mr.  President 
—39. 

For  Mr.  Grover — Messrs.  Bast,  Breckin- 
ridge, Bridge,  Brown,  Calhoun,  Chenault, 
Comingo,  Crawford,  Doniphan,  Donnell,  Doug- 
lass, Drake,  Dunn,  Frayser,  Flood,  Gamble, 
Hall  of  Buchanan,  Harbin,  Henderson,  Holmes, 
Holt,  Howell,  Hudgins,  Jamison,  Kidd,  Lin- 
ton,   Long,     Marmaduke,     Marvin,     Matson, 


Maupin,  McDowell,  Meyer,  Moss,  Norton, 
Orr,  Phillips,  Ray,  Redd,  Ritchev,  Ross,  Saw- 
yer, Shackelford  of  Howard,  Shackelford  of 
St.  Louis,  Sheelev,  Smith  of  St.  Louis,  Stew- 
art, Tindall,  Waller,  Welch,  Woodson,  Van- 
buskirk  and  Zimmerman — 54. 

Mr.  Grover  having  received  a  majority  of 
all  the  votes  cast,  was  declared  duly  elected 
sergeant-at-arms  for  this   Convention. 

On  motion  of  Mr.  Huncixs,  the  Conven- 
tion adjourned  until  to  morrow  morning  at  10 
o'clock. 


FOUET 

The  Convention  met  pursuant  to  adjourn- 
ment, and  was  opened  with  prayer  by  the  Rev. 
Andrew  Monroe. 

The  Journal  of  the  proceedings  of  yester- 
day was  read  and  approved. 

The  President  announced  the  appointment 
of  the  following  members  on  the  Committee 
on  Federal   Relations  : 

Messrs.  Gamble,  Henderson,  Redd,  Hall  of 
Randolph,  Tindall,  Doniphan,  Hall  of  Buchan- 
an, Watkins,  Hough,  Sawyer,  Douglass,  Che- 
nault and  Pomeroy. 

Also,  the  following  members  on  the  Com- 
mittee on  Claims: 

Messrs.  Shackelford  of  Howard,  Pipkin  and 
Harbin. 

Harbison  Hough,  a  Delegate  from  the 
Twenty -fifth  Senatorial  District,  presented  his 
credentials,  and  was  sworn  in  as  a  Member 
of  the  Convention  by  Hon.  S.  M.  Breckin- 
ridge, Judge  of  the  St.  Louis  Circuit  Court. 

Mr.  Howell  offered  the  following,  which 
was  read,  and,  under  rule  adopted  by  the 
Convention,  was  referred  to  the  Committee 
on  Federal  Relations. 

Resolved,  That  we,  the  people  of  the  State  of 
Missouri,  by  our  delegates  in  Convention  as- 
sembled, being  ardently  attached  to  the  Union 
of  the  States  of  this  Confederacy,  and  desirous 
of  maintaining  and  transmitting  it  to  succeed- 
ing generations  according  to  the  letter  and 
spirit  of  the  Constitution,  which  we  regard  as 
the  highest  effort  of  statesmanship  yet  made; 
in  view  of  the  fact  that  seven  of  the  States  of 
said  Confederacy  have,  in  their  sovereign  ca 
pacity,  adopted  ordinances  declaring  their  con- 
nection with  the  General  Government  dissolved, 
and  have  further  declared  to  the  world  a  con- 
federated government  among  themselves  ;  and 


H    T)  A.Y, 

TUESDAY.  MARCH  5,  1861. 
sevei-al  other  States  are  deliberating  as  to  with- 
drawing from  the  Union  ;  and  that,  in  our  opin- 
ion, any  force  employed  against  said  States 
that  have  declared  themselves  withdrawn  from 
the  Union  (or  that  may  so  declare,)  by 
the  General  Government  would  destroy 
all  hope  of  reconstructing  or  preserving 
the  Union,  do  earnestly  remonstrate  and  pro- 
test against  any  and  all  coercion,  or  attempts 
at  coercion,  of  said  States,  or  any  of  them,  into 
submission  to  the  General  Government,  whether 
it  be  clothed  with  the  name  or  pretense  of  exe- 
cuting the  laws  of  the  Union  or  otherwise,  and 
declare  that  in  such  contingency  Missouri  will 
not  view  the  same  with  indifference. 

Resolved,  That  the  President  of  this  Conven- 
tion cause  a  copy  of  the  foregoing  resolution 
to  be  respectfully  laid  before  the  President  of 
the  United  States. 

Mr.  Redd  offered  the  following  resolution, 
which  was  read  and  referred  to  the  Committee 
on  Federal  Relations  : 

Resolved  by  the  People  of  the  State  of  Missouri 
in  Convention  assembled,  That  we  are  unalter- 
ably opposed  to  the  doctrine  of  coercion,  be- 
lieving that  any  attempt  to  carry  it  into  prac- 
tice would  inevitably  result  in  civil  war,  and 
would  forever  destroy  all  hopes  of  preserving 
or  reconstructing  the  Union ;  and,  so  believing, 
we  deem  it  due  to  our  Northern  brethren,  to  de- 
clare that  it  is  the  determination  of  the  people 
of  Missouri,  that  in  the  event  that  any  South- 
ern State  is  invaded  for  the  purpose  of  carry- 
ing such  doctrine  into  effect,  to  take  their  stand 
by  the  side  of  their  Southern  brethren  and  re- 
sist the  invader  at  all  hazards. 

Mr.  Gantt   offered  the  following  resolution, 
which  was  adopted : 


22 


Resolved,  That  the  Sergeant-at-Arms  he  di- 
rected to  cause  all  persons  present  as  specta- 
tors to  he  seated,  and  that  when  the  seats  for 
the  accommodation  of  the  spectators  are  ex- 
hausted, no  further  spectators  be  admitted. 

Mr.  Henderson  offered  the  following  reso- 
lution, which  was  adopted : 

Resolved,  That  a  committee  of  seven  members 
be  appointed  by  the  President,  to  whom  shall 
be  referred  the  communication  made  to  this 
Convention  by  the  Hon.  Luther  J.  Glenn,  Com- 
missioner from  the  State  of  Georgia,  and  that 
they  report  to  the  Convention  such  action  as 
they  may  deem  a  respectful  and  suitable  re- 
sponse thereto  on  the  part  of  this  State. 

The  President  appointed  Messrs.  Henderson, 
Birch,  Howell,  Stewart,  Wright,  Marvin  and 
Knott  as  said  committee. 
On  motion  of  Mr.  Pipkin, 
Resolved,  That   Master  J.  Fielding  Long  be 
appointed  a  page  of  this  Convention. 

Mr.  Kitchey  gave  notice  that  on  to-morrow 
he  would  move  to  rescind  that  part  of  the 
eighteenth  rule,  for  the  government  of  this 
Convention,  making  it  the  duty  of  each  mem- 
ber making  a  proposition  to  read  it  in  his  place 
to  the  Convention. 

On  motion  of  Mr.  Breckinridge, 
Resolved,  That  Capt.  E.  D.  Couzens  be  re- 
quested to  act  as  Sergeant-at-Arms  of  the  Con- 
vention until  the  arrival  of  the   Sergeant- at- 
Arms  elect. 

Mr.  Wilson  moved  that  the  Convention  now 
adjourn,  which  motion  was  decided  in  the  nega- 
tive. 

Mr.  Henderson  offered  the  following  reso- 
tion,  which  was  adopted  : 

Resolved,  That  a  committee  be  appointed  b}' 
the  President,  whose  duty  it  shall  be  to  con- 
tract for  any  and  all  printing  that  may  be  or- 
dered by  the  Convention,  and  that  they  report 
as  early  as  practicable. 

The  President  appointed  upon  said  commit- 
tee Messrs.  Hendrick,  Howell  and  Woolfolk. 

Mr.  Welch  offered  the  following,  which,  on 
motion  of  Mr.  Hatcher,  was  laid  on  the  table : 
Be  it  ordained  and  declared  by  the  people  of 
the  State  of  Missouri,  in   Convention  assem- 
bled, as  follows  : 

The  Legislature  shall  have  no  power  to  pass 
special  laws  for  the  following  purposes  : 

First,  To  establish,  change  or  vacate  any 
State  road. 

Second,  To  declare  minors  of  age  for  any 
purpose. 


Third,  To  authorize  the  sale  of  real  estate, 
except  such  as  belongs  to  the  State. 

But  the  Legislature  shall  have  power  to  pass 
laws  to  authorize  courts  to  do  and  perform  the 
various  matters  herein  prohibited ;  provided,  all 
such  laws  shall  be  general  and  uniform  through- 
out the  State. 

Mr.  Gantt  offered  the  following  resolution, 
which  was  read  and  referred  to  the  committee 
appointed  to  take  into  consideration  the  com- 
munication of  the  Commissioner  from  the  State 
of  Georgia  : 

Resolved,  That  this  Convention,  having  re- 
spectfully heard  the  address  of  the  Commis- 
sioner from  our  sister  State  of  Georgia,  and 
having  thus  manifested  the  disposition  of  the 
people  of  Missouri  to  listen  with  fraternal  kind- 
ness to  any  voice  proceeding  from  any  of  their 
fellow-citizens  of  this  Union,  feels  that  its  duty 
to  the  sovereignty  which  it  represents  requires 
an  unequivocal  declaration  of  the  dissent  of  the 
people  ot  Missouri  from  the  proposal  of  Avhich 
the  Commissioner  from  their  sister  State  of 
Georgia  is  the  messenger. 

Mr.  Ray  offered  the  following  resolution, 
which  was  adopted : 

Resolved,  That  Col.  Doniphan  be  requested 
to  address  the  Convention  in  reference  to  the 
action  of  the  Peace  Congress. 

Col.  Doniphan,  being  present,  came  forward 
and  addressed  the  Convention  as  suggested  in 
the  resolution. 

Mr.  Allen  offered  the  following  resolution  : 

Resolved,  That  the  regular  session  of  this  Con- 
vention, unless  otherwise  ordered,  shall  com- 
mence at  ten  o'clock  in  the  morning  and  three 
o'clock  in  the  afternoon. 

Mr.  Sayre  moved  to  amend  the  resolution 
by  striking  out  the  words,  "  and  three  o'clock 
in  the  afternoon,"  which  was  agreed  to,  and 
the  resolution  as  amended  was  adopted. 

Mr.  Allen  offered  the  following,  which,  on 
motion  of  Mr.  Smith,  of  St.  Louis,  was  laid  on 
the  table  : 

Resolved,  That  the  Secretary  of  this  Conven- 
vention  be  authorized  to  purchase  and  furnish 
postage  stamps  for  each  of  the  members  and 
officers  of  this  Convention. 

Mr.  Comingo  offered  the  following,  which 
was  adopted. 

Resolved,  That  all  the  resolutions  offered  and 
referred  to  the  Committee  on  Federal  Relations 
be  printed  for  the  use  of  the  Convention. 

Mr.  Phillips  offered  the  following  resolu- 
tion, which  was  adopted : 


23 


Resolved,  That  Judge  Hough  be  invited  to 
address  the  Convention  upon  the  subject  of  the 
Peace  Congress. 

Mr.  Birch  offered  the  following,  which  was 
adopted : 

Ordered,  That  the  Committee  on  Federal 
Relations,  and  the  committee  to  which  was 
referred  the  communication  of  the  State  of 
Georgia,  as  made  through  her  Commissioner 
on  yesterday,  have  leave  to  sit  during  the  ses- 
sion of  this  Convention. 

Mr.  Sheeley  offered  the  following,  which 
was  adopted : 

Resolved,  That  Gen.  Coalter  be  requested 
to  address  the  Convention  in  relation  to  the 
Peace  Congress. 


Gen.  Coalter,  being  present,  came  forward 
and  complied  with  the  request  of  the  Conven- 
tion. 

Mr.  Long  offered  the  following,  which  was 
adopted  : 

Resolved,  That  Judge  John  B.  Henderson  be 
requested  to  address  this  Convention  upon  the 
condition  of  the  Union. 

Mr.  Pomeroy  offered  the  following,  which 
was  adopted  : 

Resolved,  That  the  officers  and  members  of 
the  present  General  Assembly  of  this  State, 
when  visiting  the  city  during  the  sitting  of 
this  Convention,  be  invited  to  seats  within  the 
bar. 

On  motion  of  Mr.  Gamble,  the  Convention 
adjourned. 


FIFTH    DAY, 


The  Convention  met  pursuant  to  adjourn- 
ment, and  was  opened  with  prayer  by  the  Rev. 
Mr.  Monroe. 

The  Journal  of  the  proceedings  of  yesterday 
was  read  and  approved. 

Mr.  Hatcher  offered  the  following  preamble 
and  resolutions,  which  were  read  and  referred  to 
the  Committee  on  Federal  Relations  : 

Whereas,  it  is  the  deliberate  opinion  of  this 
Convention,  that,  unless  the  unhappy  contro- 
versy, which  now  divides  the  States  of  this 
Confederacy,  shall  be  satisfactorily  adjusted,  a 
permanent  dissolution  of  the  Union  is  inevit- 
able ;  and  this  Convention,  representing  the 
wishes  of  the  people  of  Missouri,  is  desirous 
of  employing  every  reasonable  means  to  avert 
so  dire  a  calamity,  and  determined  to  make  a 
final  effort  to  restore  the  Union  and  the  Consti- 
tution in  the  spirit  in  which  they  were  estab- 
lished by  the  Fathers  of  the  Republic  ;  There- 
fore, 

Resolved,  That  on  behalf  of  the  State  of  Mis- 
souri, an  invitation  is  hereby  extended  to  the 
States  of  Delaware,  Maryland,  Virginia,  North 
Carolina,  Tennessee,  Kentucky  and  Arkansas, 
to  unite  with  Missouri  in  an  earnest  effort  to  ad- 
just the  present  unhappy  controversies  in  the 
spirit  in  which  the  Constitution  was  originally 
formed,  and  consistently  with  its  principles,  so 
as  to  secure  to  the  people  of  the  slaveholding 
States  adequate  guarantees  for  the  security  of 
their  rights  ;  and  for  this  purpose  to  appoint 
Commissioners  to  meet,  on    the  15th  day  of 


WEDNESDAY,  MARCH  6,  1861. 

April  next,  in  the  city  of  Nashville,  Tennes- 
see, similar  Commissioners  appointed  by  Mis- 
souri, to  consider,  and,  if  practicable,  agree  up- 
on some  united  coui'se  of  action  to  be  pursued 
by  said  States  in  securing  these  ends. 

Resolved,  That  Gen.  A.  W.  Doniphan,  Ay- 
lette  Buckner,  John  D.  Coalter,  Waldo 
P.  Johnson,  Harrison  Hough,  Hamilton  R. 
Gamble,  and  Nathaniel  W.  Watkins,  are 
hereby  appointed  Commissioners,  whose  duty 
it  shall  be,  when  notified  by  the  President  of 
this  Convention  that  two  or  more  of  said  States 
have  accepted  this  invitation,  to  repair  to  the 
city  of  Nashville,  Tennessee,  on  the  day  desig- 
nated in  the  foregoing  resolution,  to  meet  such 
Commissioners  as  may  be  appointed  by  any 
two  or  more  of  said  States,  in  accordance  with 
the  invitation  herein  contained. 

Resolved,  That  if  said  Commissioners,  after 
full  and  free  conference,  shall  agree  upon  any 
plan  of  adjustment,  or  any  course  of  action  to 
be  pursued  by  said  States,  in  accordance  with 
these  resolutions,  the  Commissioners  hereby 
appointed  shall  report  the  same  to  an  adjourned 
session  of  this  Convention,  to  be  held  at  such 
time  as  the  Convention  may  hereafter  deter- 
mine. 

Resolved,  That  the  President  of  this  Conven- 
tion send  copies  of  these  resolutions  to  the  Ex- 
ecutives of  the  several  States  herein  mentioned, 
with  a  request  that  the  said  Executives  inform 
him  as  soon  as  practicable,  of  the  action  of  their 
respective  States  in  this  regard,  and  that  when 


24 


informed  that  two  or  more  of  said  States  have 
responded  to  this  invitation,  by  the  appoint- 
ment of  Commissioners,  as  herein  requested, 
he  shall  forthwith  inform  the  Commissioners 
herein  appointed  of  that  fact. 

Mr.  Hatcher  moved  to  suspend  the  rules 
requiring  the  resolutions  to  be  referred  to  the 
Committee  on  Federal  Relations,  and  refer 
them  to  a  select  committee  of  five,  which  mo- 
tion was  decided  in  the  negative. 

The  Resolutions  were  then  referred  to  the 
Committee  on  Federal  Relations,  and  ordered 
to  be  printed.  j 

Mr.  Sayre  offered  the  following,  which  was 
referred  to  the  Committee  on  Federal  Relations, 
and  ordered  to  be  printed  : 

Resolved,  That  this  Convention  express  the 
sentiment  of  the  people  of  Missouri,  in  declar- 
ing their  undiminished  and  unalterable  attach- 
ment to  the  Union  of  these  States,  under  our 
glorious  Constitution.  That  a  guarantee  of 
our  rights  upon  the  subject  of  slavery,  giving 
an  equality  to  the  citizen,  and  protection  to  his 
property  that  shall  secure  us  against  the  threat- 
ened perversion  of  the  Constitution  of  the 
United  States,  from  the  interpretation  which  it 
has  received  in  all  the  departments  of  the  Fed- 
eral Government,  up  to  the  present  time,  is  in- 
dispensably necessary  ;  and  is  indispensably 
necessary  to  the  existence  of  the  union  of  these 
States.  Without  guaranties  upon  that  sub- 
ject to  that  effect,  our  Constitution  and  Union 
could  not  have  been  made,  and  they  cannot 
exist  without  them. 

That  in  the  construction  of  our  government, 
the  idea  of  the  use  of  force,  as  between  the 
States,  in  holding  them  together,  was  wholly 
discarded.  It  will  not  only  not  avail  for  that 
pm-pose,  but  the  undertaking  of  it  would  be 
usurpation. 

That  this  Convention  appoint — '■ Commis- 
sioners, and  that  we  recommend  that  the  States 
of  Delaware,  Maryland,  Virginia,  North  Car- 
olina,  Tennessee,  and   Kentucky,  to  appoint 

Commissioners  to  meet  at in  the  State  of 

on  the day  of to  confer  to- 
gether, and  set  forth  such  amendments  to  the 
Constitution  as  will  be  sufficient  for  our  honor 
and  protection  of  our  rights,  and  to  urge  upon 
the  States  which  have  seceded,  and  upon  the 
Northern  States,  to  accede  to  and  adopt  them. 

Mr.  Dunn  offered  the  following,  which  was 
read  and  referred  to  the  Committee  on  Federal 
Relations  and  ordered  to  be  printed. 

Resolved  by  the  People  of  the  State  of  Missouri 
in  Convention  assembled,  That  we  are  in  favor  of 


the  adjustment  of  our  national  troubles,  upon 
the  basis  of  the  amendments  to  the  Constitu- 
tion of  the  United  States  proposed  by  Senator 
Crittenden,  thereby  arresting  the  progress  of 
revolution,  and  securing  our  constitutional 
rights  in  the  Union,  and  removing  forever  from 
the  arena  of  party  politics  the  dangerous  sec- 
tional questions  that  have  brought  us  to  the 
verge  of  ruin. 

Mr.  Woolfolk  offered  the  following,  which 
was  read  and  referred  to  the  Committee  on 
Federal  Relations  and  ordered  to  be  printed. 

Resolved,  That  the  present  crisis  demands 
that  the  rights  of  the  Slave  States  should  be 
secured  to  them  by  amendments  to  the  Consti- 
tution, and  that  this  Convention  recommends 
to  the  Legislature  of  Missouri  that  they  apply 
to  Congress  to  call  a  general  Convention  of  all 
the  States  in  the  manner  provided  by  the  Con- 
stitution for  the  purpose  of  making  such  amend- 
ments thereto  as  will  secure  the  rights  of  the 
Slave  States,  restore  peace,  and"  relieve  the 
Southern  mind  of  apprehension  for  the  future. 

Mr.  Long  offered  the  following  resolution, 
which,  on  motion  of  Mr.  Foster,  was  laid  on 
the  table  : 

Resolved,  That  the  Sergeant-at-arms  furnish 
each  member  of  this  Convention,  except  the 
St.  Louis  delegation,  with  twenty-five  postage 
stamps. 

Mr.  Stewart  offered  the  following  resolu- 
tion, which  was  read  and  referred  to  the  Com- 
mittee on  Federal  Relations  and  ordered  to  be 
printed. 

Resolved,  That  in  the  opinion  of  this  Con- 
vention a  Convention  of  the  people  of  the  Bor- 
der States  for  the  purpose  of  presenting  a  plan 
of  Compromise  to  a  Convention  of  the  people 
of  all  the  States,  would  be  the  most  sure  and 
efficacious  method  of  adjusting  in  a  fraternal 
spirit  the  alarming  discords  which  threaten  the 
disruption  of  the  Government. 

Mr.  Linton  offered  the  following,  which  was 
read  and  referred  to  the  Committee  on  Federal 
Relations  : 

Resolved,  That  there  exists  no  adequate  cause 
why  Missouri  should  secede  from  the  Union, 
and  that  she  will  do  all  that  she  can  to  restore 
peace  to  the  same  by  satisfactory  compromises. 

Mr.  Hendrick  offered  the  following,  which 
was  read  and  referred  to  the  Committee  on 
Federal  Relations : 

1.  Resolved,  That  at  the  time  of  the  adoption 
of  the  Federal  Constitution  it  was  the  under- 
standing and  intention  of  the  people  of  the 
United  States  that  they  were  thereby  united 


25 


together  for  all  the  purposes  expressed  and  con- 
templated in  that  instrument  as  one  people,  in- 
separable and  forever. 

2.  Resolved,  That  the  provisions  of  the  Fed- 
eral Constitution  were  understood  and  intended 
by  the  people  of  tne  United  States  to  be  the 
supreme  law  of  the  land,  and  not  a  mere  com- 
pact; and  for  violations  and  infractions  thereof 
by  the  Federal  or  any  State  government,  disin- 
tegration was  not  contemplated,  but  remedies 
as  provided  in  the  Constitution  to  be  sought 
and  obtained  in  the  Union. 

3.  Resolved,  That  while  the  right  of  revolu- 
tion, for  adequate  cause,  is  not  denied,  yet  the 
Constitution  of  the  United  States,  and  acts  of 
Congress  made  in  pursuance  thereof  for  the 
admission  of  new  States  into  the  Union  as  in- 
tegral parts  of  the  United  States,  being  the  su- 
preme law  of  the  land,  no  Ordinance  of  Seces- 
sion adopted  by  a  State  government  can  abro- 
gate them. 

4.  Resolved,  That  the  Ordinances  of  Secession 
adopted  by  the  several  States  of  the  Union  are 
unauthorized  in  law  and  without  adequate 
cause  in  fact,  and  when  we  are  called  upon  to 
follow  their  example  it  is  right  and  proper  for 
us  to  consider  the  legality  and  propriety  of  do- 
ing so. 

5.  Resolved,  That  the  action  of  several  of  our 
sister  States,  in  adopting  Ordinances  of  Seces- 
sion, is  no  justifiable  cause  for  Missouri  to  se- 
cede. 

Mr.  Ritchey,  in  pursuance  of  notice  given 
on  yesterday,  offered  the  following,  which  was 
adopted  : 

Resolved,  That  that  portion  of  the  eighteenth 
rule  by  which  this  Convention  is  governed,  re- 
quiring each  member  making  a  proposition  to 
read  it  distinctly  to  the  Convention,  is  hereby 
rescinded. 

Mr.  Foster  offered  the  following,  which  was 
read  and  referred  to  the  committee  heretofore 
appointed  to  take  into  consideration  and  reply 
to  the  Commissioner  from  the  State  of  Georgia 
as  made  through  her  Commissioner. 

Whereas,  The  State  of  Georgia,  in  Con- 
vention assembled,  appointed  Mr.  L.  J.  Glenn 
a  Commissioner  to  the  State  of  Missouri,  to 
present  to  the  Convention  of  this  State  the 
Ordinance  of  Secession  of  the  State  of  Georgia,  , 
and  to  invite  the  co-operation  of  the  State  of 
Missouri  in  the  formation  of  a  Southern  Con- 
federacy ;  and  whereas,  by  invitation  of  this 
Convention,  the  said  Luther  J.  Glenn  appeared 
in   Convention  and  presented  his  commission 


and  the  Ordinance  of  Secession  of  the  State  of 
Georgia  .     Be  it  therefore 

Resolved,  By  the  delegates  of  the  State  of  Mis- 
souri, in  Convention  assembled,  that  we  respect- 
fully decline  considering  the  Ordinance  of  Se- 
cession of  the  State  of  Georgia,  as  to  the  pro- 
priety of  forming  a  Southern  Confederacy. 

Mr.  Stewart  offered  the  following,  which 
was  read  and  referred  to  the  Committee  on  Fed- 
eral Relations  : 

Resolved,  That  in  the  opinion  of  this  Conven- 
tion no  overt  act  has  been  committed  by  the 
General  Government  sufficient  to  justify  either 
secession,  nullification  or  revolution. 

Mr.  Turner  offered  the  following  resolu- 
tion : 

Resolved,  That  a  committee  of  seven  mem- 
bers of  this  Convention  (one  from  each  Con- 
gressional District,)  be  appointed,  to  whom 
shall  be  referred  all  proposed  alterations  or 
amendments  to  the  Constitution  of  the  State  of 
Missouri. 

Mr.  Sayre  moved  to  lay  the  resolution  on 
the  table,  which  was  decided  in  the  affirmative 
by  the  following  vote,  the  ayes  and  noes  being 
demanded  by  Mr.  Turner  : 

Ayes — Messrs.  Bass,  Bast,  Birch,  Breckin- 
ridge, Bridge,  Brown,  Cayce,  Chenault,  Collier, 
Comingo,  Doniphan,  Donnell,  Douglass,  Drake, 
Dunn,  Frayser,  Flood,  Foster,  Gamble,  Gantt, 
Givens,  Gorin,  Hall  of  Buchanan,  Hall  of 
Randolph,  Harbin,  Hatcher,  Hill,  Hitchcock, 
Holmes,  Holt,  Hough,  Howell,  Hudgins,  Irwin, 
Jamison,  Kidd,  Knott,  Linton,  Long,  Marma- 
duke,  Matson,  McCormack,  McDowell,  Mc- 
Ferran,  Morrow,  Moss,  Noell,  Norton,  Orr, 
Phillips,  Pomeroy,  Ray,  Ritchey,  Ross,  Row- 
land, Sawyer,  Sayre,  Scott,  Shackelford  of 
Howard,  Shackelford  of  Si.  Louis,  Sheeley, 
Smith  of  Linn,  Stewart,  Tindall,  Watkins, 
Wilson,  Woodson,  Woolfolk,  Vanbuskirk  and 
Mr.  President — 70. 

Noes — Messrs.  Allen,  Bartlett,  Broadhead, 
Push,  Calhoun,  Eitzen,  Gravely,  Hendrick, 
How,  Isbell,  Jackson,  Johnson,  Leeper,  Mar- 
vin, Maupin,  McClurg,  Rankin,  Smith  of  St. 
Louis,  Turner,  Waller,  Welch,  Wright  and 
Zimmerman — 24. 

Absent — Messrs.  Henderson,  Meyer  and 
Redd. 

Sick — Messrs.  Crawford  and  Pipkin. 

Mr.  Dunn  offered  the  following  resolution, 
which  was  read  and  referred  to  the  Committee 
on  Federal  Relations  : 

Resolved,  By  the  people  of  the  State  of  Mis- 
souri, in  Convention  assembled  :  That  we  are 
opposed  to  military  coercion  for  the  purpose  of 
subjugating  the  States  that  have  withdrawn 
from  the  Union,  and  we  would  regard  any  at- 
tempt at  such  military  coercion,  under  any 
pretext  whatever,  as  an  act  of  war,  which,  if 


26 


successful,  would  lead  to  the  establishment  of 
a  military  despotism  upon  the  ruins  of  the  Con- 
stitution. We  are  also  opposed  to  any  act  of 
war  against  the  United  states  by  the  States 
that  have  withdrawn  from  the  Union.  The 
preservation  of  the  Union  depends  upon  the 
preservation  of  the  peace. 

Mr.  Allen  introduced  the  following  resolu- 
tion, which  was  read  and  referred  to  the  Com- 
mittee on  Federal  Kelations  : 

Resolved,  That  the  border  free  and  slave 
States  be  requested  by  this  Convention  to  co- 
operate together  for  the  settlement  of  the  ques- 
tions that  now  agitate  this  country. 

Mr.  Orr  offered  the  following  resolution, 
which  was  read  and  referred  to  the  Committee 
on  Federal  Relations  : 

Resolved,  That  we  have  the  best  government 
in  the  world,  and  intend  to  keep  it. 

Mr.  McFerran  offered  the  following  resolu- 
tions, which  were  read  and  referred  to  the  Com- 
mittee on  Federal  Relations : 

Resolved,  That  Missouri  deplores  the  section- 
al strife  and  alienation  existing  between  the 
North  and  the  South,  and  regards  the  same  as 
inimical  to  the  dearest  rights  of  Missouri  and 
the  peace  and  perpetuity  of  our  Federal  Union. 

2.  Resolved,  That  Missouri  is  an  integral 
part  of  the  great  West,  and  declares  her  fealty 
and  attachment  to  her  own  interests  and  sec- 
tion, and  invites  her  sister  States  of  the  West 
to  ignore  the  dogmas  of  New  England  on  the 
one  hand,  and  the  Gulf  States  on  the  other ; 
and  at  once  to  inaugurate  a  Western  policy, 


loyal  to  the  Federal  Constitution  and  the  Union 
of  the  States. 

Mr.  Wilson  offered  the  following,  which 
was  adopted  : 

Resolved,  That  the  Committee  on  Accounts 
be  instructed  to  allow  the  door-keeper  and  ser- 
geant-at-arms  each  five  dollars  per  day,  and 
the  pages  each  two  dollars  and  fifty  cents  per 
day's  services. 

Mr.  Shackelford,  of  Howard,  offered  the 
following,  which  was  adopted  : 

Resolved,  That  the  Committee  on  Accounts 
be  instructed  to  allow  the  Chaplain  of  this  Con- 
vention five  dollars  per  day  during  the  sitting 
of  this  Convention. 

Mr.  Turner  offered  the  following  resolution, 
which  was  read  and  referred  to  the  Committee 
on  Federal  Relations  : 

Resolved,  That  the  people  of  Missouri  de- 
plore the  existence  in  some  of  the  Northern 
States  of  acts  known  as  "Personal  Liberty 
Bills,"  designed  to  nullify  the  fugitive  slave  law, 
and  giving  the  Southern  States  just  cause  of 
complaint  for  the  violation  of  the  compact  exist- 
ing between  the  States  ;  which  personal  liberty 
bills  are  admitted  to  be  unconstitutional  even 
by  the  Executives  of  the  States  having  such 
laws ;  and  we  equally  deplore  the  state  of  feel- 
ing in  the  South,  and  the  passage  of  Ordinan- 
ces of  Secession  by  the  Southern  States,  de- 
claring themselves  dissolved  from  the  obliga- 
tions and  bonds  imposed  upon  them  by  the  Con- 
stitution of  the  United  States. 

On  motion  of  Mr.  Norton,  the  Convention 
adjourned. 


SIXTH    DA.Y 


The  Convention  met  pursuant  to  adjourn- 
ment, and  was  opened  with  prayer  by  the  Rev. 
Mr.  Monroe. 

The  Journal  of  the  proceedings  of  yesterday 
was  read  and  approved. 

Mr.  Norton  offered  the  following  resolution, 
which  was  read  and  referred  to  the  Committee 
on  Federal  Relations : 

Resolved,  That  it  is  the  opinion  of  this  Con- 
vention, that  the  country  and  confederacy  could 
at  once  be  relieved  from  its  present  deplorable 
condition,  if  the  great  conservative  heart  of 
the  people  of  all  sections  could  be  appealed  to 
independent  of  the  influence  of  the  dema- 
gogues, fanatics  and  politicians,  who  sprung 
the  present  tests  for  their  own  benefit ;  and 
thus  believing,  we  suggest  that  the  Legislature 


THURSDAY,  MARCH  7,  1861. 
of  the  State  of  Missouri  recommend  the  Crit- 
tenden compromise  propositions  to  Congress  as 
amendments  to  the  Federal  Constitution,  or 
recommend  Congress  to  call  a  National  Con- 
vention, to  which  these  or  similar  propositions 
shall  be  submitted  as  amendments  to  the  pres- 
ent Constitution. 

Mr.  Zimmerman  offered  the  following  reso- 
lution, which  was  read  and  referred  to  the 
Committee  on  Federal  Relations  : 

Resolved,  That  this  Convention  appoint  a 
committee  of  five  to  confer  with  the  border 
slave  and  free  States  upon  the  subject  of  the 
preservation  of  the  Union  upon  just  and  prop- 
er principles,  and  that  a  Convention  of  the 
border  slave  and  free  States  be  called  for  the 
purpose  of  forming  a  Middle  Confederacy  in 


27 


the  event  of  the  failure  of  the  preservation  of 
the  present  Union. 

Mr.  Shackelford,  of  Howard,  offered  the 
following  resolution  : 

Resolved,  That  each  member  of  the  Conven- 
tion be  requested  to  hand  to  the  Committee  on 
Accounts,  without  delay,  a  statement  of  the 
number  of  miles  travelled  by  each,  to  the  City 
of  Jefferson,  that  the  same  may  be  examined 
and  the  proper  allowance  for  mileage  be  made 
by  the  Committee. 

Mr.  Welch  moved  to  amend  by  striking  out 
the  words  "  to  the  City  of  Jefferson,"  which 
motion  was  rejected  by  the  Convention. 

The  question  then  being  on  the  original  re- 
solution, the  same  was  adopted. 

Mr.  Wilson,  from  the  Committee  heretofore 
appointed,  presented  the  following  report  which 
was  agreed  to  : 

Mr.  President  :  The  committee  to  which  was 
referred  the  resolution  requiring  said  commit- 
tee to  employ  two  competent  persons  to  report 
the  proceedings  and  debates,  report  that  they 
have  discharged  that  duty,  and  have  employed 
L.  L.  Walbridge  and  E.  Schrick,  gentlemen 
well  qualified  to  discharge  the  duties  required, 
and  have  agreed  to  pay  said  Reporters,  each, 
six  dollars  per  day,  during  the  sitting  of  the 
Convention.  All  of  which  is  respectfully  sub- 
mitted. 

Mr.  Brown  offered  the  following  resolutions, 
which  were  read,  and  on  motion  of  Mr.  Welch 
laid  on  the  table  and  ordered  to  be  printed  : 

Resolved,  That  when  this  Convention  shall 
have  finished  the  business  for  which  it  assem- 
bled it  shall  adjourn  to  meet  in  the  Represent- 
atives' Hall,  in  the  city  of  Jefferson,  on  Mon- 
day, the  first  day  of  July,  1861. 

Resolved,  2d,  That  a  Committee  of  Seven, 
composing  one  from  each  Congressional  district 
of  the  State  of  Missouri,  be  elected  by  ballot, 
whose  duty  it  shall  be  to  convene  the  said 
Convention  prior  to  the  time  designated  as 
above,  should  the  exigencies  of  the  time  re- 
quire it  to  be  done,  by  giving  fifteen  days'  no- 
tice in  some  one  of  the  public  newspapers  pub- 
lished in  each  one  of  the  Congressional  districts 
of  the  State  of  Missouri  of  the  time  and  place 
of  holding  the   said  Convention. 

And  be  it  further  Resolved,  That  the  said  Com- 
mittee, as  soon  as  practicable  after  their  elec- 
tion, meet  together,  appoint  their  Chairman,  and 
establish  their  rules  by  which  they  are  to  be 
governed  in  convening  said  Convention,  or  de- 
ciding upon  the  practicability  of  so  doing. 


Mr.  Breckinridge  offered  the  following 
resolutions,  which  were  read  and  referred  to 
the  Committee  on  Federal  Relations  : 

Resolved  by  the  People  of  Missouri  in  Convention 
Assembled,  That  secession  is  a  dangerous  polit- 
ical heresy,  finding  no  warrant  in  the  constitu- 
tion or  laws  which  lie  at  the  foundation  of  our 
systems  of  government. 

Resolved,  That  Missouri  will  do  nothing  to 
sanction,  support  or  countenance  the  pretended 
right  of  secession,  since  its  approval  by  the 
people  involves  the  destruction  of  all  our  insti- 
tutions, whether  State  or  Federal. 

Resolved,  That  the  government  which  our 
fathers  formed,  and  which  for  nearly  three 
quarters  of  a  century  has  failed  in  nothing  to 
answer  the  ends  for  which  it  was  established,  is 
suited  to  the  habits,  and  adapted  to  the  wants 
of  the  American  people,  and  that  every  dictate 
of  wisdom  requires  us  to  direct  our  efforts 
rather  to  its  preservation  than  the  formation  of 
any  substitute  for  it. 

Resolved,  That  we  deplore  the  action  of  some 
of  our  Southern  brethren  in  adopting  ordi- 
nances of  Secession,  and  assuming  a  hostile 
attitude  towards  the  Federal  authorities.  In 
asserting  that  secession  is  a  remedy  for  the 
grievances  of  which  the  South  complains  ;  in 
seeking  to  destroy  the  Federal  government, 
which  is  of  itself  guiltless  of  wrong  ;  and  in 
forgetting  that  in  and  through  the  Union  are 
better  means  and  ampler  facilities  for  redressing 
all  grievance  than  out  of  it — they  have  com- 
mitted grave  errors  ;  and  whilst  Missouri  will 
exhaust  all  efforts  in  restoring  harmony  and 
securing  justice,  she  recognizes  no  obligation 
to  support  them  in  these  proceedings,  believing 
that  thereby  she  would  prejudice  rather  than 
promote  the  best  interest  of  all  concerned. 

Resolved,  That  it  is  essential  to  the  existence 
of  government  that  some  authority  should  be 
charged  with  the  duty  of  executing  the  laws, 
and  that  the  proper  action  of  the  constituted 
authorities  should  be  supported  and  obeyed  ; 
and  although  we  deprecate  any  collision  be- 
tween the  Federal  government  and  our  disaffec- 
ted Southern  brethren,  it  is  the  opinion  of  this 
Convention  that  these  duties  and  obligations, 
as  prescribed  by  and  under  our  Federal  Consti- 
tution, cannot  be  annulled  or  impaired  consist- 
ently with  the  peace,  dignity,  or  existence  of 
the  governments,  State  or  Federal. 

Resolved,  That  for  the  thorough  and  final  re- 
moval of  all  cause  of  complaint  against  our 
brethren  of  the  Northern  States,  we  desire  the 
enforcement  of  the  Constitutional  guarantee 


28 


concerning  the  rendition  of  fugitives  from 
service,  a  renunciation  of  any  purpose  to  inter- 
fere with  slavery  in  the  States  or  in  the  District 
of  Columbia,  or  with  the  inter-state  slave  trade, 
and  some  equitable  and  complete  adjustment 
of  the  territorial  question  based  upon  an  aban- 
donment by  the  North  of  any  purpose  to  use 
the  power  of  the  General  Government  to  re- 
press or  extinguish  slavery,  and  by  the  South 
of  any  purpose  to  use  the  power  of  the  Gen- 
eral Government  to  perpetuate  and  extend  it  ; 
and  that  we  confidently  rely  upon  the  justice 
of  our  Northern  brethren  to  aid  by  appropri- 
ate legislation,  or  by  adequate  constitutional 
amendments,  in  producing  these  results,  and 
in  securing  their  enforcement  and  observance 
by  a  cordial  compliance  with  their  spirit. 

Resolved,  That  we  appeal  to  our  sister  States 
of  Kentucky,  Arkansas,  Tennessee,  North  Car- 
olina, Virginia,  Maryland,  and  Delaware, 
whose  interests  are  so  closely  identified  with 
our  own,  to  stand  firmly  with  us  in  the  posi- 
tion we  assume,  asking  of  our  Northern  breth- 
ren the  full  recognition  of  our  just  claims, 
and  of  our  Southern  brethren  a  reconsidera- 
tion of  their  hasty  action — that  so  may  be  re- 
stored the  old  relations  of  peace,  prosperity 
and  perfect  union. 

Mr.  Moss  offered  the  following  resolutions, 
which  were  read  and  referred  to  the  Committee 
on  Federal  Relations : 

Resolved,  That  believing  there  is  no  hope  left 
for  a  settlement  of  our  present  difficulties,  except 
by  the  action  of  the  people  at  the  ballot  box,  we 
recommend  the  calling  of  a  National  Conven- 
tion, to  be  composed  of  delegates  elected  by 
the  people ;  and  believing  further  that  it  is  of 
the  last  importance  to  have  unity  and  concert 
of  action  on  the  part  of  the  friends  of  the  Union, 
and  being  satisfied  that  a  large  majority  of  the 
people  of  the  United  States  are  in  favor  of  what 
are  known  as  the  Crittenden  resolutions  as  a 
basis  of  setlement,  Missouri  will  occupy  that 
ground,  and  we  call  upon  the  friends  of  peace 
and  the  Union  in  the  slaveholding  and  non- 
slaveholding  States  to  take  position  with  Mis- 
souri, and,  if  possible,  instruct  their  delegates 
to  the  National  Convention  to  make  the  Crit- 
tenden resolutions  the  basis  of  settlement  of 
our  difficulties. 

Resolved,  That  being  unalterably  opposed  to 
any  attempt  on  the  part  of  the  General  Gov- 
ernment to  coerce  a  seceding  State,  Missouri 
will  never  furnish  men  and  money  for  that  pur- 
pose. 


Mr.  Comtngo  offered  the  following  resolu- 
tions, which  were  read  and  referred  to  the 
Committee  on  Federal  Relations. 

Whereas,  under  our  Federal  Government 
we  have  been  one  of  the  greatest  and  one  of  the 
most  prosperous  nations  of  the  earth  ;and,  where- 
as, said  government,  if  faithfully  administered, 
will  ultimately  secure  to  its  subjects  a  degree 
of  happiness  and  greatness  never  yet  attained 
by  any  other  people;  and,  ivhereas,  there  are 
strong  reasons  for  fearing  that  the  conflicting 
views  and  feelings  of  the  people  of  this  Con- 
federacy may  result  in  the  subversion  of  the 
Government  under  which  we  have  so  greatly 
prospered,  and  plunge  our  nation  into  the  vor- 
tex of  civil  war,  and  drench  the  land  with  fra- 
ternal blood  :  Therefore,  we,  the  people  of  the 
State  of  Missouri,  in  Convention  assembled,  do 
hereby 

Resolve,  1st.  That  under  the  Federal  Govern- 
ment the  people  of  the  United  States  of  America 
have  hitherto  been  greatly  prospered  at  home 
and  respected  abroad ;  and  that  to  it  they  are 
mainly  indebted  for  the  high  position  they 
have  attained  among  the  nations  of  the  earth. 

2.  Resolved,  That  we  are  warmly  attached  to 
the  Federal  Union,  and  that  we  will  not  cease 
our  efforts  for  its  preservation,  until  hope  that 
we  may  obtain  an  honorable  settlement  of  our 
difficulties  ceases  to  be  rational. 

8.  Resolved,  That  we  believe  all  our  national 
difficulties  may  be  settled,  and  that  peace  and 
fraternal  feeling  will  be  again  restored,  if  the 
people  of  the  North  should  be  allowed  the  time, 
and  can  obtain  the  privilege  of  uttering  their 
voice  at  the  ballot  box. 

4.  Resolved,  That  without  the  further  exer- 
cise of  a  spirit  of  forbearance,  conciliation  and 
compromise,  there  can  be  no  hope  of  an  adjust- 
ment of  our  national  difficulties  ;  and  that  unless 
they  be  amicably  adjusted,  civil  war  will  inev- 
itably ensue  ;  and,  as  a  necessary  consequence, 
financial  and  social  and  moral  ruin  must  follow, 
together  with  scenes  of  carnage  and  violence 
without  a  parallel  in  the  history  of  our  race. 

5.  Resolved,  That,  in  the  opinion  of  this  Con- 
vention, the  compromise  resolutions  offered  by 
Senator  Crittenden,  at  the  late  session  of  Con- 
gress, present  a  basis  of  adjustment  that  is  at 
once  honorable  and  permanent;  that  it  is  not 
unreasonable  to  hope  that  the  seceded  States 
would  ultimately  return  into  the  Union  on  that 
basis  were  it  adopted  ;  and  that  no  propositions, 
materially  differing  from  those  above  indicated, 
will  be  so  well  calculated  to  restore  peace,  and 
dispel  the  darkness  that  overshadows  the  land. 


29 


6.  Resolved,  That  whatever  may  be  our  views 
touching:  the  action  of  the  seceded  States  ;  how- 
ever much  we  may  regret  their  haste,  and  how- 
ever much  we  may  feel  the  injustice  which  they 
have  done  their  sister  slave  states,  we  believe 
any  attempt  on  the  part  of  the  General  Govern- 
ment to  coerce  them  back  would  involve  the 
whole  nation  in  civil  Avar,  and  would  forever 
preclude  the  possibility  of  a  reunion  of  the 
States. 

7.  Resolved,  That  whether  Missouri  shall  con- 
tinue to  occupy  her  present  status,  or  shall 
hereafter  be  compelled  to  seek  other  alliances, 
she  will  not  submit  to,  nor  tolerate,  but  will 
resist  and  oppose  any  attempt  that  may  point 
to  the  coercion  of  the  seceded  States. 

8.  Resolved,  That,  in  order  further  to  carry 
forward  our  efforts  to  procure  our  liberties  and 
union,  we  recommend  a  Convention  of  the  peo- 
ple of  the  border  States  for  the  purpose  of  pre- 
senting a  plan  of  adjustment  to  be  submitted 
to  the  people  of  all  the  States  that  have  not 
seceded. 

Mr.  McDowell  presented  the  following 
resolution,  which  was  adopted : 

Resolved,  That  Hon.  John  Reynolds,  late 
Governor  of  Illinois,  be  invited  to  address  this 
Convention,  in  this  Hall,  on  next  Friday  eve- 
ning, at  7  o'clock. 

Mr.  Gantt  offered  the  following  resolutions, 
which  were  read  and  referred  to  the  Commit- 
tee on  Federal  Relations  . 

1.  Resolved,  That  the  Government  which  is 
the  birthright  of  the  citizens  of  this  Union, 
resulting  from  the  combined  action  of  the  Fed- 
eral Constitution  and  those  of  Federal  States, 
is,  beyond  any  of  which  history  speaks,  calcu- 
lated for  the  promotion  of  the  great  ends  for 
which  governments  were  established  among 
mankind. 

2.  Resolved,  That  the  physical  peculiarities 
of  our  widely  extended  country,  and  its  varie- 
ties of  soil  and  climate,  necessitating  a  diversi- 
ty of  pursuits  and  a  division  of  labor,  and  sec- 
onding most  auspiciously  the  far-reaching  and 
long-sighted  wisdom  and  patriotism  of  those 
who  laid  the  foundations  of  the  American  Un- 
ion, have  raised  this  country,  in  the  short  space 
of  three  score  years  and  ten,  to  the  full  stature 
of  a  first-rate  power,  differing  from  other  na- 
tionalities of  equal  rank  chiefly  in  this :  that 
whereas  centuries  of  struggle,  of  misfortune, 
and  painful  vicissitude  have  brought  them  to 
their  present  state,  our  happy  condition  is  the 
achievement  of  hopeful  and  expanding  youth, 
a  few  years  of  prosperity  uncheckered  with  re- 


verse, and  the  blessing  of  Heaven  upon  the 
best  system  of  government  which  the  wisdom 
and  piety  of  mankind  ever  devised  for  the  wel- 
fare of  the  human  race. 

3.  Resolved,  That  while  nothing  which  is 
the  work  of  living  man  is  free  from  imperfec- 
tion, it  may  be  said,  without  unbecoming  pre- 
sumption, that  the  successful  solution  by  the 
fathers  of  our  nation,  of  the  great  problem  of 
government,  ("which  never  before  was  able  to 
hit  and  maintain  the  golden  mean  between  des- 
potism and  anarchy,)  has  not  only  made  the 
United  States  the  envy  of  the  universe,  but 
has  been,  and,  despite  the  dangers  that  threat- 
en us,  still  is,  the  pole-star  and  the  watch  word 
throughout  the  world  of  those  who  are  strug- 
gling for  liberty. 

4.  Resolved,  That  while  this  is  the  benign 
aspect  which  this  country  wears  towards  op- 
pressed and  struggling  nationalities,  our  flag, 
which  now  waves  over  every  sea,  carries  to 
the  governments  of  the  remotest  regions  of  the 
earth,  a  warning  that  wherever  the  humblest 
American  citizen  is  found,  the  protection  of  a 
mighty,  vigilant  and  proud  nation  accompanies 
and  watches  over  him. 

5.  Resolved,  That  the  enjoyment  of  the  in- 
numerable blessings  which  flow  from  our  Na- 
tional Union  is  a  boon,  for  gaining  which,  the 
most  spiritless  of  mankind  would  gladly  barter 
their  blood  ;  and  that  the  people  of  the  United 
States,  on  pain  of  being  condemned  as  unwor- 
thy and  degraded  men,  standing  in  most  hide- 
ous contrast  with  their  heroic  forefathers,  must 
transmit  this  sacred  inheritance  unimpaired  to 
their  children. 

6.  Resolved,  That  coercion  in  the  sense  of 
civil  war  waged  by  one  section  of  the  country 
upon  the  other  with  the  design  of  bringing  any 
State  or  States  into  subjection,  and  holding 
them  as  conquered  provinces,  is  not  only  a 
moral,  political  and  military  impossibility,  but 
is  subversive  of  the  central  idea  on  which  the 
Union  of  these  States  was  formed  ;  but  that  the 
same  word  in  the  sense  of  a  faithful  execution 
of  the  supreme  law  of  the  land  (of  which  the 
fugitive  slave  law  and  the  law  for  the  suppres- 
sion of  the  African  slave  trade  are  examples) 
means  no  more  than  what  is  inseparably  bound 
up  with  the  very  nature  of  government— and 
that  government  deprived  of  its  healthful  func- 
tions, is  the  idlest  of  all  solemn  mockeries. 

7.  Resolved,  That  the  present  is  a  crisis,  the 
importance  of  which  no  language  can  exagger- 
ate. That  our  national  existence,  our  civil  lib- 
erties, the  right  of  every  peaceful  and  orderly 


30 


citizen  to  enjoy  the  fruits  of  his  toil,  and  free- 
dom from  the  tyranny  of  tumultuary  violence, 
all  depend  upon  what  the  next  few  months  may 
bring  forth.  That  in  the  conclusions  which 
may  then  be  reached  will  be  found  the  answer 
to  the  inquiry,  whether  this  proud  and  power- 
ful nation  shall  become  a  hissing  and  a  re- 
proach, furnishing  one  more  theme  for  the  ex- 
ultation of  the  friends  of  arbitrary  govern- 
ment ;  or  shall  vindicate  our  claim  to  be  con- 
sidered as  the  faithful  depositaries  of  the  best 
hopes  of  mankind. 

Mr.  Moss  offered  the  following  order,  which 
was,  on  motion  of  Mr.  Irwin,  laid  on  the  table  : 

Ordered,  That  the  Inaugural  Address  of  the 
President  of  the  United  States  be  committed 
to  a  Committee  of  the  Whole  House,  to  be  de- 
nominated a  Committee  of  the  Whole  on  the 
State  of  the  Union. 

Mr.  Flood  offered  the  following  resolutions, 
which  were  referred  to  the  Committee  on  Fed- 
eral Relations  : 

Whereas,  Seven  of  our  sister  States  have 
withdrawn  from  the  General  Government  and 
have  formed  a  new  Confederacy  ;  therefore 

1.  Resolved,  That  it  is  the  wish  of  the  State 
of  Missouri  that  the  officers  and  soldiers  of  the 
Forts,  and  the  officers  of  the  Custom  Houses 
belonging  to  the  United  States,  within  the  lim- 
its of  said  seceding  States,  be  Avithdrawn. 

2.  Resolved,  That  the  President  of  this  Con- 
vention make  known  our  wishes  to  the  Presi- 
dent of  the  United  States. 

Mr.  Phillips  offered  the  following  resolu- 
tion : 

Resolved,  That  a  committee  of  two  be  ap- 
pointed by  the  President  to  wait  upon  the  Hon. 
John  B.  Clark,  member  of  Congress  from  the 
Third  Congressional  District  of  Missouri,  and 
invite  him  to  address  this  Convention  at  sueh 
time  as  may  suit  his  convenience. 

Mr.  Bogy  moved  to  amend  by  adding  the 
name  of  Hon.  John  W.  Noell,  which  motion 
was  agreed  to  by  the  Convention. 

Mr.  Dunn  moved  to  amend  by  adding  the 
name  of  Captain  Craig. 

Mr.  Sheeley  moved  to  amend  the  amend- 
ment by  adding  all  the  members  of  the  present 
Congress  now  in  the  city. 

And  thereupon,  by  leave  of  the  Convention, 
Mr.  Phillips  withdrew  the  original  resolution. 

Mr.  Brown  offered  the  following  resolution, 
which  was  adopted  : 

Resolved,  That  the  resolution  requiring  all 
resolutions  referred  to  the  Committee  on  Fed- 
eral Relations  to  be  printed  be  rescinded. 


Mr.  Matson  offered  the  following  resolution, 
which,  on  motion  of  Mr.  Phillips,  was  laid 
on  the  table : 

Resolved,  That  this  Convention  invite  Hon. 
A.  H.  Buckner  to  address  it  on  the  subject  of 
his  mission  to  the  Peace  Conference. 

Mr.  Irwin  offered  the  following  resolution, 
which  was  referred  to  the  Committee  on  Fed- 
eral Relations  : 

Resolved,  By  the  people  of  the  State  of  Mis- 
souri, in  Convention  assembled,  that  the  basis 
of  settlement  proposed  in  the  resolutions  of  the 
Hon.  John  J.  Crittenden  of  Kentucky,  had  the 
same  been  adopted,  would  have  met  with  our 
hearty  approval,  believing  at  the  same  time 
that  they  contained  nothing  to  which  the  South 
is  not  justly  entitled;  yet  in  view  of  the  dan- 
gers which  surround  us,  and  which  threaten 
the  disruption  and  final  overthrow  of  our  glo- 
rious Republic,  involving  interests  the  value, 
yea,  the  preciousness  of  which  can  never  be 
estimated,  we  will  approve  of  any  other  fair 
and  honorable  plan  of  adjustment  that  will 
bring  peace  to  our  distracted  country,  and  fur- 
nish proof  to  the  world  that,  as  a  nation,  we  are 
one  great  people — one  in  name,  one  in  interest, 
one  in  destiny. 

Mr.  Shackelford,  of  Howard,  moved  a  re- 
consideration of  the  vote  on  the  adoption  of  the 
resolution  inviting  Hon.  John  Reynolds  to  ad- 
dress the  Convention,  which  was  agreed  to,  and 
thereupon  the  resolution  was  laid  on  the  table 
by  the  Convention. 

Mr.  Wilson  offered  the  following  resolution  : 
Resolved,  That  the  people  of  Missouri,  by 
their  delegates  assembled  in  this  Convention, 
do  hereby  tender  to  the  Hon.  John  J.  Critten- 
den, of  Kentucky,  and  the  Hon.  Stephen  A. 
Douglas,  of  Illinois,  their  thanks  for  their  pa- 
triotic, able  and  untiring  efforts,  during  the 
last  session  of  Congress,  to  settle  and  adjust 
the  sectional  difficulties  which  now,  so  unhap- 
pily, distract  the  people  of  this  great  Confed- 
eracy ;  and,  although  they  have  been  as  yet 
unsuccessful,  yet  we  feel  assured  that  the  labors 
of  these  distinguished  patriots  will  be  grateful- 
ly remembered  by  every  true  friend  of  Liberty 
and  Union  in  all  time  to  come. 

Which  was  adopted  by  the  following  vote, 
the  ayes  and  noes  being  demanded  by  Mr. 
Ritchey : 

Ayes — Messrs.  Allen,  Bartlett,  Bass,  Bast, 
Birch,  Bogy,  Breckinridge,  Broadhead,  Bridge, 
Brown,  Bush,  Calhoun,  Cayce,  Collier,  Comin- 
go,  Crawford,  Donnell,  Drake,  Dunn,  Eitzen, 
Frayser,  Flood,  Foster,  Gantt,  Givens,  Gorin, 
Gravely,  Harbin,  Hatcher,  Hendrick,  Hill, 
Hitchcock,  Holmes,  Holt,  How,  Howell,  Hud- 


31 


gins,  Irwin,  Isbell,  Jackson,  Johnson,  Jamison, 
Kidd,  Knott,  Leeper,  Linton,  Long,  Marma- 
duke,  Marvin,  Matson,  McClurg,  McCormack, 
McDowell,  MeFerran,  Meyer,  Morrow,  Moss, 
Noell,  Norton,  Orr,  Phillips,  Rankin,  Ray, 
Ritchey,  Ross,  Rowland,  Scott,  Shackelford  of 
Howard,  Shackelford  of  St.  Louis,  Sheeley, 
Smith  of  Linn,  Smith  of  St.  Louis,  Stewart, 
Turner,  Waller,  Welch,  Wilson,  Woodson, 
Woolfolk,  Wright,  Vanbuskirk,  Zimmerman 
and  Mr.  President — 83. 


Noes — None. 

Absent  ox  leave — Messrs.  Chenault,  Don- 
iphan, Douglass,  Gamble,  Hall  of  Buchanan, 
Hall  of  Randolph,  Henderson,  Hough,  Ponie- 
roy,  Sawyer,  Redd  and  Watkins. 

Absent — Messrs.  Maupin,  Sayre  and  Tin- 
dall. 

Sick — Mr.  Pipkin. 

On  motion  of  Mr.  Sheeley,  the  Convention 
adjourned. 


SEVENTH    EA.Y 


The  Convention  met  pursuant  to  adjourn- 
ment, and  was  opened  with  prayer  by  the  Rev. 
Mr.  Monroe. 

The  journal  of  the  proceedings  of  yesterday 
was  read  and  approved. 

Mr.  Calhoun  offered  the  following  resolu- 
tions, which  were  read  and  referred  to  the  Com- 
mittee on  Federal  Relations  : 

Resolved,  That  the  difference  existing  between 
the  Northern  and  Southern  States  can  be  better 
adjusted  in  the  Union  than  out  of  it,  and  that 
it  is  only  to  be  done  by  a  spirit  of  mutual  for- 
bearance and  concession. 

Resolved,  That  whenever  we  exhaust  all 
efforts  to  compromise  the  existing  differences, 
and  have  given  the  people  in  Southern  and 
Northern  States  time  to  reflect  and  act,  and  we 
see  that  on  the  part  of  the  free  States  and  the 
extreme  Southern  States  that  they  do  not  love 
the  Union  sufficiently  to  make  concessions  suffi- 
cient to  prevent  it,  then  it  will  behoove  us,  with 
the  border  States— that  is,  those  States  border- 
ing on  the  Ohio  and  Mississippi  rivers — with 
North  Carolina,  to  meet  in  Convention  and  de- 
termine what  will  be  best  for  them  to  do  in  the 
premises. 

Mr.  Harbin  offered  the  following  resolution, 
and  moved  that  the  rule  requiring  it  to  be  re- 
ferred to  the  Committee  on  Federal  Relations 
be  rescinded,  which  motion  was  decided  in  the 
negative.  The  resolution  was  then  read  and 
referred  according  to  the  rule  : 

Resolved,  That  this  Convention  earnestly  de- 
sire an  early  settlement  of  the  questions  which 
have  unhappily  estranged  the  people  of  the  dif- 
ferent sections  of  the  United  States  from  each 
other,  and  we  earnestly  hope  that  measures 
may  soon  be  inaugurated  to  allay  the  present 
excitement,  and  restore  peace  and  harmony 
among  the   several  States ;    and   that,  in  the 


FRIDAY,  MARCH  8,  1861. 

opinion  of  this  Convention,  any  attempt  on  the 
part  of  the  Executive  of  the  United  States  to 
coerce,  by  force  of  arms,  the  seceding  States 
again  into  the  Union,  will  be  both  unwise  and 
impolitic,  tending  to  force  the  border  States 
to  secession,  and  all  the  States  into  civil  war. 

Mr.  Turner  offered  the  following  resolu- 
tions, which  were  read  and  referred  to  the  Com- 
mittee on  Federal  Relations. 

1.  Resolved,  That  we,  the  people  of  the  State 
of  Missouri,  are  immovably  attached  to  the 
Constitution  of  the  United  States,  and  that  while 
we  have  a  veneration  for  the  patriotic  names  of 
Washington,  Jefferson  and  Madison,  we  will 
ever  uphold  and  defend  that  sacred  instrument 
from  the  violence,  treason  and  fanaticism  of 
either  Northern  or  Southern  traitors. 

2.  Resolved,  That  we  deny  the  existence  of 
the  right  of  secession  in  government  affairs,  be- 
lieving that  the  existence  of  such  right  would 
be  destructive  to  the  permanency  of  our  na- 
tional government,  which  we  understand  to 
have  been  intended  to  be  perpetual  by  the 
framers  of  the  Constitution. 

3.  Resolved,  That  while  we  deny  the  right  of 
secession,  we  hold  to  the  inalienable  right  of 
revolution,  whenever  the  Government  under 
which  we  live  becomes  so  oppressive  or  tyran- 
nical that  the  evils  of  revolution  can  better  be 
borne  and  endured  than  the  oppressions  com- 
plained of. 

4.  Resolved,  That  in  the  opinion  of  this  Con- 
vention the  General  Government  is  the  palla- 
dium of  the  liberties  of  the  people  of  the 
United  States,  and  as  long  as  it  continues  to 
protect  and  defend  the  liberties  and  rights  of 
the  citizens  of  Missouri,  so  long  will  Missouri 
stand  true  and  loyal  to  the  Union  and  Consti- 
tution, regardless  of  what  other  States  may  see 
proper  to  do  in  the  premises. 


32 


Mr.  Cayce  offered  the  following  resolution : 
Resolved,  That  the  Committee  for  Publication 
be  requested  to  have  three  hundred  copies  of 
the  roll  struck,  with  the  postoffice  address  of 
each  member,  for  the  use  of  the  members  of 
this  Convention. 

Mr.  Dunn  moved  to  amend  by  striking  out 
"  three  hundred  "  and  inserting  five  hundred, 
which  amendment  was  agreed  to. 

Mr.  Sheeley  moved  to  amend  the  resolu- 
tion by  inserting  county,  age,  place  of  nativity, 
post  office  address  and  profession,  and  that  each 
member  be  requested  to  furnish  the  Secretary 
with  the  information,  which  was  agreed  to. 

Mr.  Crawford  moved  to  amend  after  the 
word  " nativity  "  by  adding  "antecedents  in 
politics,"  which  was  rejected. 

The  resolution,  as  amended,  was  then 
adopted. 

Mr.  Howell  offered  the  following,  which, 
on  motion  of  Mr.  Sheeley,  was  laid  on  the 
table : 

Resolved,  That  the  Committee  on  Printing 

procure  the  printing  and  binding  of copies 

of  the  debates  in,  and  proceedings  of,  this  Con- 
vention. 

Mr.  Bush  offered  the  following,  which  was 
read  and  referred  to  the  Committee  on  Federal 
Relations : 

Resolved,  That  the  history  of  all  nations,  from 
the  ancient  to  the  modern  times,  has  proven 
that  the  dismemberment  of  any  one  nation  into 
several  governments,  or  confederacies,  has  re- 
sulted in  anarchy,  despotism  and  ruin,  and  that 
as  in  Union  there  is  strength,  so  in  disunion 
there  is  destruction. 

Mr.  Ray  ofiered  the  following  resolution, 
which  was  adopted: 

Resolved,  That  the  Committee  on  Printing  be 
requested  to  inquire  into  the  propriety  and 
probable  cost  of  having copies  of  the  de- 
bates in,  and  proceedings  of,  this  Convention 
published  in  pamphlet  form,  and  report  the 
same  to  this  Convention  for  future  action. 

Mr.  Leeper  offered  the  following  resolu- 
tions, which  were  read  and  referred  to  the 
Committee  on  Federal  Relations  : 

1.  Resolved  by  the  People  of  Missouri,  in  Con- 
vention assembled,  Whereas,  great  disquietude 
exists  in  this  Government,  in  the  Gulf  States  of 
the  South,  by  the  aggressive  acts  of  the  extreme 
Northern  States;  therefore 

2.  Resolved,  That  this  Convention  condemns 
the  aggressive  acts  of  the  North,  and  the  hasty 
and  precipitate  action  of  the  Southern  or  se- 
ceded States. 


3.  Resolved,  That  the  course  pursued  by  South 
Carolina  and  other  seceding  States  is  no  reason 
that  Missouri  should  follow  their  example. 

4.  Resolved,  That  it  is  the  duty  of  Missouri 
and  the  other  border  States  to  take  a  firm  posi- 
tion for  the  maintenance  of  the  Union,  the  pre- 
servation of  our  Constitution,  and  the  honor  of 
our  flag ;  and,  if  necessary,  to  form  a  central 
republic  of  the  border  States,  both  North  and 
South,  adopting  the  Constitution  as  our  supreme 
law,  the  stars  and  stripes  as  our  ensign,  and 
invite  our  wandering  sister  States  to  assume 
their  original  position  in  the  family  of  States 
forming  this  great  confederacy. 

5.  Resolved,  That  this  Convention  is  opposed 
to  the  present  Executive  attempting  to  force  or 
coerce  the  seceding  States  back  into  the  Union, 
and  that  this  Convention  is  equally  opposed  to 
South  Carolina,  or  any  or  all  of  the  seceding 
States,  attacking  or  inaugurating  a  war  for  the 
purpose  of  capturing  any  fort,  fortification  or 
other  public  property  belonging  to  the  United 
States. 

Resolved,  Qth,  That  the  people  wish  all  the  na- 
tional difficulties  settled  by  some  just  and  hon- 
orable compromise,  and  would  for  this  purpose 
recommend  those  resolutions  known  as  the 
Crittenden  Resolutions,  or  any  other  plan  that 
would  do  justice  both  to  the  North  and  South. 

Mr.  Long  ofiered  the  following  resolution, 
which  on  motion  of  Mr.  Crawford  was  laid 
on  the  table  by  the  following  vote,  the  ayes 
and  noes  having  been  demanded  by  Mr.  Long  : 
Resolved,  That  the  inaugural  address  of 
President  Lincoln  is  a  message  of  peace  and 
not  of  war. 

Ayes. —  Messrs.  Allen,  Bartlett,  Bass,  Bast, 
Bogy,  Brown,  Calhoun,  Cayce,  Chenault, 
Collier,  Comingo,  Crawford,  Doniphan,  Don- 
nell,  Drake,  Dunn,  Frayser,  Flood,  Givens, 
Gorin,  Gravely,  Harbin,  Hatcher,  Hill,  Holt, 
Hough,  Howell,  Hudgins,  Irwin,  Jamison, Mar- 
mad  uke,  Matson,  McCormack,  McDowell, 
Noell,  Phillips,  Pomeroy,  Rankin,  Redd,  Ritch- 
ey,  Sawyer,  Sayre,  Shackelford  of  St.  Louis, 
Sheeley,  Waller,  Watkins,  Wilson,  Woolfolk, 
Vanbuskirk,  Zimmerman  and  Mr.  President 
—52. 

Noes. — Messrs.  Breckinridge,  Broadhead, 
Bridge,  Bush,  Ei^zen,  Foster,  Gantt,  Hender- 
son, Hendrick,  Hitchcock,  Holmes,  Howe, 
Isbell,  Jackson,  Johnson,  Leeper,  Linton,  Long, 
Marvin,  Maupin,  McClurg,  McFerran,  Meyer, 
Morrow,  Moss,  Norton,  Orr,  Ray,  Rowland, 
Scott,  Smith  of  St.  Louis,  Turner,  Welch, 
Woodson  and  Wright — 37. 

Absent  :  Messrs.  Knott,  Ross,  Stewart  and 
Tindal. 

Absent  on  Leave  :  Messrs.  Douglass,  Gam- 
ble, Hall  of  Buchanan,  Hall  of  Randolph. 


33 


Sick  :  Messrs.  Birch  and  Pipkin. 

Mr.  Turner  moved  to  take  up  the  resolu- 
tion introduced  by  him  on  yesterday,  and  laid 
on  the  table,  for  the  appointment  of  a  Commit- 
tee of  seven  members,  (one  from  each  con- 
gressional district,)  to  whom  shall  be  referred 
all  proposed  alterations  or  amendments  to  the 
Constitution  of  the  State  of  Missouri,  which 
motion  was  decided  in  the  negative  by  the 
following  vote,  the  ayes  and  noes  having  been 
demanded  by  Mr.  Comingo. 

Ayes. — Messrs.  Bass,  Bast,  Bogy,  Breckin- 
ridge, Broadhead,  Bridge,  Bush,  Calhoun,  Eit- 
zen,  Frayser,  Gantt,  Gravely,  Henderson, 
Hendrick,  Hitchcock,  Holmes,  How,  Howell, 
Hudgins,  Isbell,  Jackson,  Johnson,  Kidd,  Lee- 
per,  Marvin,  Maupin,  McClurg,  Meyer  Mor- 
row, Orr,  Rankin,  Scott,  Smith  of  Linn,  Smith 


of  St  Louis,  Turner,    Welch,  Wilson,   Wright 
and  Zimmerman — 39. 

Noes. — Messrs.  Allen,  Bartlett,  Brown, 
Cayce,  Chenault,  Collier,  Comingo,  Crawford, 
Doniphan,  Donnell,  Douglass,  Drake,  Dunn, 
Flood,  Foster,  Givens,  Gorin,  Harbin,  Hatcher, 
Hill,  Holt,  Irwin,  Jamison,  Linton,  Long,  Mar- 
maduke,  Matson,  McCormack,  McDowell, 
MeFerran,  Moss,  Noell,  Norton,  Fhiliips,  Pom- 
eroy,  Ray,  Redd,  Ritchey,  Rowland,  Sawyer, 
Sayer,  Shackelford  of  Howard,  Shackelford  of 
St.  Louis,  Sheeky,  Waller,  Woodson,  Woolfolk, 
Vanbuskirk  and  Mr.  President — 19. 

Absent  on  Leave — Messrs.  Gamble,  Hall 
of  Buchanan,  Hall  of  Randolph,  Hough  and 
Watkins. 

Absent — Messrs.  Knott,  Stewart  and  Tin- 
dall. 

Sick — Messrs.  Birch  and  Pipkin. 

On  motion  of  Mr.  Welch,  the  Convention 
adjourned. 


EIGHTH    DA.Y. 


The  Convention  met,  pursuant  to  adjourn- 
ment, and  was  opened  with  prayer  by  the  Rev. 
Mr.  Monroe. 

The  Journal  of  the  Proceedings  of  yesterday 
was  read  and  approved. 

The  Committee  on  Printing  submitted  the 
following  report : 

The  Committee  on  Printing  respectfully  re- 
port that  they  have  made  diligent  inquiry  in 
relation  to  the  printing  to  be  required  by  the 
Convention,  and  find  it  difficult  to  specify  the 
precise  kind  of  work  necessary ;  and  it  is  al- 
most impossible  to  give  a  schedule  of  prices. 

The  Committee  have,  therefore,  made  ar- 
rangements with  George  Knapp  &  Co.,  who 
agree  to  execute  the  printing  for  the  Conven- 
tion, on  the  same  basis  as  that  adopted  in  the 
Revised  Statutes  of  Missouri,  and  applicable  to 
Public  Printing. 

All  printing  in  book  form,  to  be  done  on 
good,  strong  paper,  in  such  type  as  may  be  di- 
rected by  the  Committee  or  Officer  having 
superintendance  thereof.  All  documents  and 
other  job  work,  with  such  type  and  paper  as 
may  be  directed  by  the  proper  officer.  The 
printing  to  be  done  promptly,  in  a  neat  and 
workmanlike  manner. 

Price  for  blank  forms,  62i  cents  for  the  first 
eight  quires,  each ;  and  for  every  additional 
quire,  50  cents. 

For  public  documents,  the  price  to  be  50 
cents  per  thousand  ems,  for  the  first  hundred 
3a 


SATURDAY   MARCH  9,  1861. 

copies,  and  10  cents  per  thousand  ems  for  each 
additional  hundred  copies. 

For  pressing  sheets,  folding  and  stitching, 
and  covering  with  strong  paper  cover,  not  over 
5  cents  per  volume,  for  less  than  82  pages  for 
each  volume ;  substantially  half  bound,  leather 
covers  and  backs,  and  lettered,  30  cents. 

The  Committee  recommend  the  adoption  of 
the  following  resolutions  : 

1.  Resolved,  That  the  Secretary  of  the  Con- 
vention be  instructed  to  have  the  printing  done 
by  George  Knapp  &  Co.,  on  terms  as  above. 

2.  Resolved,  That  the  Secretary  be  instruct- 
ed to  have  printed  at  least  5,000  copies  of  the 
Debates  and  Proceedings,  in  pamphlet  form, 
for  the  use  of  the  members  of  the  Convention. 

LITTLE  BERRY  HENDRICK, 
WM.  J.  HOWELL, 
ALEX.  M.  WOOLFOLK. 

Mr.  Sheeley  moved  to  strike  out  the  sec- 
ond resolution  in  said  report,  which  motion 
was  agreed  to.  The  report  of  said  Committee 
was  then  adopted  by  the  Convention. 

Mr.  Irwin  offered  the  following  resolution, 
which  was  adopted : 

Whereas,  A  resolution  was  introduced  into 
this  body,  on  yesterday,  declaring  that  the  In- 
augural of  President  Lincoln  is  one  of  peace, 
and  not  of  war,  which  resolution  was,  on  mo- 
tion, laid  on  the  table, 


34 


And,  Wiikreas,  it  has  been  represented 
that  the  action  of  the  Convention  may  he  view- 
ed in  the  light  of  a  test  vote,  therefore, 

Resolved,  That  the  action  of  the  Convention, 
in  laying  said  resolution  on  the  table,  cannot, 
with  the  least  propriety  or  show  of  truth,  be 
considered  as  any  test  whatever  of  the  sense  of 
this  Convention,  relative  to  the  sentiment  enun- 
ciated in  said  resolution. 

Mr.  Dunn  offered  the  following  resolution, 
which  was  adopted  : 

Resolved,  That  the  committee  on  printing 
shall  contract  for  printing  five  thousand  copies 
of  the  proceedings  and  debates  of  this  Conven- 
tion, in  pamphlet  form,  and  one  thousand  cop- 
ies, to  be  bound,  as  soon  as  the  General  Assem- 
bly shall  make  an  appropriation  to  pay  for  the 
same. 

Mr.  Gamble,  from  the  Committee  on  Feder- 
al Relations,  presented  the  following  report, 
which  was  read,  and  on  motion  of 

Mr.  Doniphan,  was  laid  on  the  table,  order- 
ed to  be  printed,  and  made  the  special  order  of 
the  day  for  Monday,  at  half-past  ten  o'clock, 
a.  M. 

Report  and  Resolutions  of   Committee  on  Federal 
Relations  : 

The  Committee  on  Federal  Relations  beg  leave 
to  report.  On  looking  to  the  present  condition  of 
our  late  prosperous,  happy  and  united  country, 
we  see  seven  of  our  sister  States  by  the  action  of 
their  Conventions  declaring  themselves  separated 
from  the  United  States,  and  organizing  for  them- 
selves a  distinct  national  government;  while 
others  are  in  a  disturbed  condition,  looking  anx- 
iously to  the  future,  and  uncertain  about  all  that 
is  to  come. 

If,  in  our  astonishment  at  the  sudden  disrup- 
tion of  our  nation,  we  attempt  to  trace  the  causes 
that  have  produced  the  disastrous  result,  we  rind 
that  the  origin  of  the  difficulty  is  rather  in  the 
alienated  feelings  existing  between  the  Northern 
and  Southern  sections  of  the  country,  than  in  the 
actual  injury  suffered  by  either;  rather  in  the  an- 
ticipation of  future  evils,  than  in  the  pressure  of 
any  now  actually  endured. 

It  is  true  that  the  people  of  the  Southern  States 
have  a  right  to  complain  of  the  incessant  abuse 
poured  upon  their  institutions  by  the  press,  the 
pulpit,  and  many  of  the  people  of  the  North.  It 
is  true  that  they  have  a  right  to  complain  of  legis- 
lative enactments  designed  to  interfere  with  the 
assertion  of  their  constitutional  rights.  It  is  true 
that  the  hostile  feeling  to  Southern  institutions 
entertained  by  many  at  the  North  have  mani- 
fested themselves  in  mob  violence  interfering 
with  the  execution  of  laws  made  to  secure  the 
rights  of  Southern  citizens.    It  is  true  that  in  one 


instance  this  fanatical  feelinehas  displayed  itself 
in  the  actual  invasion  of  a  Southern  State  by  a 
few  madmen,  who  totally  misunderstood  the  in- 
stitution they  came  to  subvert.  It  is  true  that  a 
sectional  political  party  has  been  organized  at  the 
North,  based  upon  the  idea  that  the  institution  of 
Southern  slavery  is  not  to  be  allowed  to  extend 
itself  into  the  Territories  of  the  United  States,  and 
that  this  party  has  for  the  present  possessed  itself 
of  the  power  of  the  Government. 

Whilst  it  is  thus  true  that  the  people  of  the  South 
have  well-grounded  complaints  against  many 
of  their  fellow-citizens  of  the  North,  it  is  equally 
true  that  heretofore  there  has  been  no  complaint 
against  the  action  of  the  Federal  Government  in 
any  of  its  departments,  as  designed  to  violate  the 
rights  of  the  Southern  States. 

By  some  incomprehensible  delusion  many 
Northern  people  have  come  to  believe  that  in 
some  manner  they  are  chargeable  with  complici- 
ty in  what  they  are  pleased  to  consider  the  sin  of 
slavery,  and  for  which,  as  existing  in  the  South- 
ern States,  they  are  just  as  much  responsible  as 
they  are  for  the  same  relation  existing  in  the 
heart  of  Africa.  This  morbid  sensitiveness  has 
been  ministered  to  by  religious  and  political  agi- 
tators for  the  purpose  of  increasing  their  own 
importance  and.  advancing  their  own  interests* 
and  the  natural  consequences  have  followed :  out- 
bursts of  mob  violence  and  of  political  action 
against  the  owners  of  slaves. 

While  the  prejudice  thus  existing  in  the  North- 
ern mind  is  latent,  not  exhibiting  itself  in  action, 
Ave  may  lament  its  existence  and  the  estrange- 
ment it  produces;  but  we  trust  in  such  case,  as  in 
all  others  of  similar  character,  that  a  better 
knowledge  of  the  subject  will  remove  the  preju- 
dice. Already  the  awakened  attention  of  the 
Northern  people  gives  promise  that  the  miserable 
agitators  will  be  stript  of  their  power  over  the 
public  mind,  and  that  reason  and  a  correct  sense 
of  duty  and  of  justice  will  ultimately  prevail, 
and  dispose  our  Northern  fellow-citizens  to  fulfill 
all  the  duties  they  owe  to  us  as  citizens  of  the 
same  country,  living  under  the  same  Constitution, 
inheritors  of  the  same  blood,  and  sharers  in  the 
same  destiny. 

So  far  as  the  prejudice  complained  of  has 
manifested  itself  in  legislative  action,  the  com- 
plaint is  not  merely  that  such  action  violates  the 
Constitution  of  the  United  States,  because  our 
own  State  has  passed  acts  which  have  been  de- 
clared by  our  own  judicial  tribunals  and  by  the 
Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States  to  be  viola- 
tions of  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States; 
and  those  familiar  with  the  judicial  history  of  the 
country  know  that  many,  if  not  all  the  States  of 
the  Union,  have  at  times  passed  laws  which  have 
been  held  to  be  inconsistent  with  that  Constitu- 
tion. Some  of  these  acts  related  to  land  titles, 
some  to  contracts,  some  affected  commerce  with 


35 


foreign  nations  and  between  the  States ;  but  all 
such  laws  as  they  were,  not  produced  by  any  sec- 
tional feeling,  were  left  to  be  decided  upon  by  the 
tribunals  of  the  country  with  an  ultimate  appeal 
to  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States,  the 
final  arbiter  on  all  cases  arising  under  the  Con- 
stitution. Such  cases  produced  no  excitement  in 
the  public  mind,  and  all  confidence  was  reposed 
in  that  elevated  tribunal  that  it  would  vindicate 
the  supremacy  of  the  Constitution. 

There  is  no  reason  to  apprehend  that  that 
tribunal  would  shrink  from  declaring  the 
class  of  enactments  of  which  we  are  now  treat- 
ing, which  are  aimed  against  the  rights  of 
slaveholders,  repugnant  to  the  Constitution, 
and  therefore  void.  There  is,  therefore,  an  ob- 
vious remedy  for  the  grievances  arising  out  of 
this  unconsttutional  legislation,  and  that,  too,  a 
remedy  provided  by  the  Constitution  itself  for  an 
evil  foreseen  when  it  was  made.  Moreover,  there 
are  indications  of  a  returning  sense  of  justice  in 
the  Northern  States,  from  which  we  may  hope 
for  the  voluntary  repeal  of  these  obnoxious  en- 
actments. 

Upon  the  subject  of  the  violent  interference  by 
mobs  with  the  execution  of  the  fugitive  slave 
law,  and  the  forcible  abduction  of  slaves  when 
with  their  owners  in  the  Northern  States,  it  is 
proper  to  observe  there  reigns  throughout  this 
land  a  spirit  of  insubordination  to  law  that  is 
probably  unequaled  in  any  other  civilized  coun- 
try on  the  globe.  While  this  is  true,  it  is  a  fact 
of  which  we  can  still  be  proud  that  the  judicial 
tribunals  of  the  Federal  Government  have  not 
failed  in  any  case  brought  before  them  to  main- 
tain the  rights  of  Southern  citizens,  and  to  punish 
the  violators  of  those  rights. 

When  Southern  soil  is  invaded  by  Northern 
madmen  for  the  purpose  of  overthrowing  the  in- 
stitution of  slavery,  they  meet  their  death  by  the 
law,  and  that  is  the  end  of  their  scheme. 

The  fact  that  a  sectional  party  avowing  oppo- 
sition to  the  admission  of  slavery  into  the  Terri- 
tories of  the  United  States  has  been  organized, 
and  has  for  the  present  obtained  possession  of  the 
Government,  is  to  be  deeply  regretted,  because  it 
opens  before  us  all  the  dangers  against  which  the 
Father  of  his  Country  so  earnestly  warned  us. 

But  the  history  of  our  country  for  a  few  years 
back  instructs  us  in  the  truth  that  politcal  par- 
ties, even  when  coming  into  power  with  over- 
whelming popularity,  soon  melt  away  under  the 
influence  of  internal  jealousies,  and  disappoint- 
ments and  the  attacks  of  vigilant  opponents. 

When  a  party  comes  into  power  upon  the 
basis  of  a  single  question  of  policy,  there  is  soon 
found  the  truth,  that  government  can  not  be  ad- 
ministered upon  a  single  idea,  and  its  supporters 
become  divided  upon  the  questions  which  affect 
their  own  interests. 


There  is  every  reason  to  hope  that  the  party 
which  has  just  assumed  the  reins  of  government 
will  feel  that  the  vast  interests  entrusted  to  their 
management  are  of  much  greater  importance 
than  the  question  whether  slaves  shall  or  shall 
not  be  admitted  into  all  the  territory  that  now 
belongs  to  the  United  States.  There  is  reason  to 
hope  that  when  the  masses  of  that  party  under- 
stand that  the  admission  of  slaves  into  a  Terri- 
tory does  not  increase  the  number  of  slaves  in 
being,  they  will  be  prepared  to  make  any  ar- 
rangement with  their  Southern  brethren  which 
shall  assure  to  them  equal  rights  in  the  common 
Territories. 

Under  the  state  of  facts  now  existing  it  would 
seem  almost  needless  to  speak  of  the  propriety  of 
the  State  of  Missouri  engaging  in  a  revolution 
against  the  Federal  Government.  Secession  is 
the  word  commonly  employed  when  the  revolu- 
tion now  in  progress  is  mentioned;  but  as  the 
Constitution  of  the  United  States  recognizes  no 
power  in  any  State  to  destroy  the  Government, 
the  word  "  secession,"  when  used  in  this  paper  is 
to  be  understood  as  equivalent  to  revolution. 

To  involve  Missouri  in  revolution,  under  present 
circumstances,  is  certainly  not  demanded  by  the 
magnitude  of  the  grievances  of  which  we  com- 
plain, nor  by  the  certainty  that  they  cannot  be 
otherwise  and  more  peacefully  remedied,  nor  by 
the  hope  that  they  would  be  remedied  or  even 
diminished  by  such  revolution. 

The  position  of  Missouri  in  relation  to  the  ad- 
jacent States  which  would  continue  in  the  Union, 
would  necessarily  expose  her,  if  she  became  a 
member  of  a  new  confederacy,  to  utter  destruc- 
tion whenever  any  rupture  might  take  place  be- 
tween the  different  republics.  In  a  military  as- 
pect, secession  and  a  connection  with  a  Southern 
confederacy  is  annihilation  for  our  State. 

Many  of  our  largest  interests  would  perish  un- 
der a  system  of  free  trade. 

Emigration  to  the  State  must  cease.  No  South- 
ern man  owning  slaves  would  come  to  the  fron- 
tier State;  no  Northern  man  would  come  to  this 
foreign  country  avowedly  hostile  to  his  native 
land. 

Our  slave  interest  would  be  destroyed,  because 
we  would  have  no  better  right  to  recapture  a 
6lave  found  in  a  free  State  than  we  now  have  in 
Canada.  The  owners  of  slaves  must  either  re- 
move with  them  to  the  South  or  sell  them,  and 
so  we  would,  in  a  few  years,  exhibit  the  spectacle 
of  a  State  breaking  up  its  most  advantageous  and 
important  relations  to  the  old  Union,  in  order  to 
enter  into  a  slaveholding  confederacy  and  having 
itself  no  slaves. 

The  thought  of  revolution  by  Missouri,  under 
present  circumstances,  is  not,  we  believe,  serious- 
ly entertained  by  any  member  of  this  Convention. 

But  what  is  now  the  true  position  for  Missouri 
to  assume?    Evidently  that  of  a  State  whose  in- 


36 


terests  are  bound  up  in  the  maintenance  of  the 
Union,  and  whose  kind  feelings  and  strong  sym- 
pathies are  with  the  people  of  the  Southern  States, 
with  whom  we  are  connected  by  ties  of  friendship 
and  of  blood.  We  want  the  peace  and  harmony 
of  tho  country  restored,  and  we  want  them  with 
us.  To  go  with  them  as  they  are  now,  to  leave 
the  Government  our  fathers  builded,  to  blot  out 
the  star  of  Missouri  from  the  constellation  of  the 
Union,  is  to  ruin  ourselves  without  doing  them 
any  good.  We  cannot  now  follow  them ;  we  can- 
not now  give  up  the  Union ;  yet  we  will  do  all  in 
our  power  to  induce  them  to  take  their  places  with 
us  in  the  family  from  which  they  have  attempted 
to  separate  themselves.  For  this  purpose  we  will 
not  only  recommend  a  compromise  with  which 
they  ought  to  be  satisfied,  but  we  will  unite  in  the 
endeavor  to  procure  an  assemblage  of  the  whole 
family  of  States  in  order  that  in  a  General  Con- 
vention such  amendments  to  the  Constitution  may 
be  agreed  upon  as  shall  permanently  restore  har- 
mony to  the  whole  nation. 

While  attempts  are  being  made  to  heal  the 
present  divisions,  it  is  a  matter  of  the  highest  im- 
portance that  there  should  occur  no  military 
conflict  between  the  Federal  Government  and  the 
government  of  any  of  the  seceded  States.  Such 
conflict  will  certainly  produce  a  high  state  of  ex- 
asperation and  very  probably  render  abortive  all 
attempts  to  adjust  the  matters  of  difference. 

While  it  is  admitted  that  every  government 
must  possess  the  power  to  execute  its  own  laws, 
and  that  the  Government  of  the  United  States  is 
no  exception  to  this  necessary  and  universal  rule, 
still,  in  a  case  such  as  that  with  which  we  are 
now  dealing,  it  is  all-important  that  those  in  au- 
thority should  remember  that  such  power  is  not 
given  to  be  exercised  for  the  destruction  of  the 
Government,  under  the  guise  of  maintaining  its 
authority.  The  question  of  exercising  such  pow- 
er is  to  be  determined  with  a  view  to  all  existing 
circumstances ;  and  while  the  power  itself  cannot 
be  abandoned,  the  greatest  patience  and  forbear- 
ance may  often  be  required  in  order  to  prevent 
evils  in  the  highest  degree  dangerous  to  the  peace 
of  the  nation. 

Placed  as  Missouri  is  in  the  very  centre  of  the 
Confederacy,  united  to  all  its  parts  and  interested 
in  the  prosperity  of  each  part,  she  would  speak 
to  the  Government  of  the  United  States  and  to 
the  Governments  of  the  seceding  States,  not  in 
the  language  of  menace  but  of  kindness,  not 
threatening  but  entreating;  and  with  this  feeling 
she  would  ask  all  concerned  in  the  Governments 
to  avoid  all  military  collisions  which  would  with- 
out doubt  produce  uncontrollable  excitement, 
and  very  probably  ruinous  civil  war.  Civil  war 
among  the  American  people,  the  citizens  of  the 
freest  nation  of  the  world,  blest  of  God,  envied 
of  man,  would  be  a  spectacle  at  which  Humani- 
ty wou$  shudder,  over  which  Freedom  would 


weep,  and  from  which  Christianity  affrighted 
would  flee  away. 

If  it  be  the  glorious  mission  of  Missouri  to  aid 
in  arresting  the  progress  of  revolution  and  in  re- 
storing peace  and  prosperity  to  the  country ;  if 
she  shall  be  instrumental  in  binding  together 
again  the  hearts  of  the  American  people,  and 
thus  restoring  the  union  of  affection  as  well  as 
the  union  of  political  and  individual  interest,  she 
will  but  occupy  the  position  for  which  nature  de- 
signed her  by  giving  her  a  central  position,  and 
endowing  her  with  all  the  elements  of  wealth  and 
power.  And  why  should  she  not? — she  was 
brought  forth  in  a  storm  and  cradled  in  a  com- 
promise. She  can  resist  the  one  and  recommend 
the  other. 

In  order  to  express  her  opinion  and  wishes,  the 
following  resolutions  are  submitted : 

1.  Resolved,  That  at  present  there  is  no  ade- 
quate cause  to  impel  Missouri  to  dissolve  her 
connection  with  the  Federal  Union,  but  on  the 
contrary  she  will  labor  for  such  an  adjustment  of 
existing  troubles  as  wQl  secure  the  peace,  as  well 
as  the  rights  and  equality  of  all  the  States. 

2.  Resolved,  That  the  people  of  this  State  are 
devotedly  attached  to  the  institutions  of  our 
country  and  earnestly  desire  that  by  a  fair  and 
amicable  adjustment  all  the  causes  of  disagree- 
ment that  at  present  unfortunately  distract  us  as 
a  people  may  be  removed,  to  the  end  that  our 
Union  may  be  preserved  and  perpetuated,  and 
peace  and  harmony  be  restored  between  the 
North  and  the  South. 

3.  Resolved,  That  the  people  of  this  State 
deem  the  amendments  to  the  Constitution  of  the 
United  States,  proposed  by  the  Hon.  John  J. 
Crittenden  of  Kentucky,  which  the  extension  of 
the  same  to  the  territory  hereafter  to  be  acquir- 
ed by  treaty  or  otherwise,  a  basis  of  adjustment 
which  will  successfully  remove  the  causes  of  dif- 
ference forever  from  the  arena  of  national  poli- 
tics. 

4.  Resolved,  That  the  people  of  Missouri  be- 
lieve the  peace  and  quiet  of  the  country  will  be 
promoted  by  a  Convention  to  propose  amend* 
ments  to  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States, 
and  this  Convention  therefore  urges  the  Legisla- 
ture of  this  State  to  take  the  proper  steps  for 
calling  such  a  Convention  in  pursuance  of  the 
fifth  article  of  the  Constitution,  and  for  provid- 
ing by  law  for  an  election  of  one  delegate  to 
such  Convention  from  each  electoral  district  in 
this  State. 

5.  Resolved,  That  in  the  opinion  of  this  Conven- 
tion, the  employment  of  military  force  by  the  Fed- 
eral Government  to  coerce  the  submission  of  the 
seceding  States,  or  the  employment  of  military 
force  by  the  seceding  States  to  assail  the  Govern- 
ment of  the  United  States,  will  inevitably  plunge 
this  country  into  civil  war,  and  thereby  entirely  ex- 
tinguish all  hope  of  an  amicable  settlement  of  the 


37 


fearful  issues  now  pending  before  the  country ; 
we  therefore  earnestly  entreat,  as  well  the  Federal 
Government  as  the  seceding  States,  to  withhold 
and  stay  the  arm  of  military  power,  and  on  no 
pretense  whatever  bring  upon  the  nation  the  hor- 
rors of  civil  war. 

6.  Resolved,  That  when  this  Convention  ad- 
journs its  session  in  the  city  of  St.  Louis,  it  will 
adjourn  to  meet  in  the  hall  of  the  House  of  Rep- 
resentatives at  Jefferson  city,  on  the  third  Mon- 
day of  December,  1861. 

7.  Resolved,    That  a  Committee  of be 

elected  by  this  Convention,  a  majority  of  which 
shall  have  power  to  call  this  Convention  together 
at  such  time  prior  to  the  third  Monday  In  De- 


cember, and  at  such  place  as  they  may  think  the 
public  exigencies  require,  and  the  survivors  or 
survivor  of  said  Committee  shall  have  power  to 
fill  any  vacancies  that  may  happen  in  said  Com- 
mittee by  death,  resignation,  or  otherwise,  dur- 
ing the  recess  of  this  Convention. 

GAMBLE,  Chairman. 

Mr.  Redd,  from  same  Committee  gave  no- 
tice that  he  would,  on  Monday  next,  present  a 
minority  report,  and  asked  leave  for  that  pur- 
pose ;  and  also,  to  have  said  report  printed, 
which  was  granted. 

On  motion  of  Mr.  Shackelford,  of  How- 
ard, the  Convention  adjourned. 


NINTH    DAY, 


The  Convention  met  pursuant  to  adjourn- 
ment, and  was  opened  with  prayer  by  the 
Chaplain,  Rev.  Mr.  Monroe. 

The  Journal  of  the  proceedings  of  Saturday 
was  read  and  approved. 

Mr.  Birch  offered  the  following,  which  was 
read  : 

Whereas,  An  article  appeared  in  the  Missouri 
Republican  of  this  morning,  of  which  the  fol- 
lowing is  a  copy  : 

"A  Plot  to  precipitate  Missouri  into  Disunion 
exposed. 

"Mr,  Editor  : — Within  the  last  four  days,  a 
prominent  gentleman  of  this  city,  who  was  a 
candidate  for  this  Convention  on  the  Consti- 
tutional ticket,  was  waited  upon  by  several 
gentlemen,  who  stated  that  the  Convention 
which  is  now  in  session  was  unsound,  and 
that  it  was  necessary  to  take  measures  to  have 
this  State  secede  ;  and  to  bring  about  that  re- 
sult, the  gentleman  to  whom  I  allude,  was  in- 
vited to  meet  his  visitors  on  a  certain  designa- 
ted evening  and  at  an  appointed  place,  to  take 
the  preliminary  steps  to  force  the  State  into 
secession. 

"The  gentleman  above  referred  to  answered 
his  visitors  by  informing  them  that  they  had 
mistaken  his  views,  that  he  was  not  a  seces- 
sionist, and  was  opposed  to  secession.  His 
visitors  charged  him  with  changing  his  grounds 
which  charge  was  denied,  and  the  matter  was 
cut  short  by  the  gentlemen  being  distinctly  and 
emphatically  informed  that  if  they  held  their 
meeting  there  they  would  be  exposed.  The 
meeting  was   not  held  at  the  place  indicated, 


MONDAY,  MARCH  11,  1861. 

and  it  is  not  known  whether  it  was  held  at 
any  other  place  or  not. 

"The  gentleman  who  gave  me  the  foregoing 
information,  is  the  same  who  was  waited  upon 
by  the  party  of  secessionists  ;  and  although  I 
have  not  attempted  to  give  his  language,  I  give 
the  substance  of  the  facts  he  told  me,  and  I 
doubt  not  they  can  be  substantiated  if  need  be  ; 
my  informant  is  a  man  of  truth  and  will  not 
eat  his  words." 

Be  it  therefore  Resolved,  That  a  committee  be 
appointed  to  specifically  enquire  into  the  facts 
and  circumstances  connected  with  so  daring  a 
conspiracy  as  the  one  therein  foreshadowed  ; 
and  that  the  said  committee  have  the  power  to 
send  for  persons  and  papers,  and  to  sit  during 
the  session  of  this  Convention. 

Mr.  Knott  moved  to  lay  the  resolution  on 
the  table,  which  motion  was  decided  in  the  neg- 
ative by  the  following  vote,  the  ayes  and  noes 
having  been  called  for  by  Mr.  Birch  : 

Ayes. — Messrs.  Allen,  Bartlett,  Bass,  Bast, 
Bogy,  Brown,  Cayce,  Collier,  Comingo,  Craw- 
ford, Donnell,  Frayser,  Flood,  Givens,  Gorin, 
Harbin,  Hatcher,  Hill,  Hough,  Hudgins,  Kidd, 
Knott,  Matson,  Noell,  Redd,  Sayre,  Shackel- 
ford of  Howard,  Sheeley,  Waller  and  Watkins 
—30. 

Noes. — Messrs.  Birch,  Breckinridge,  Broad- 
head,  Bridge,  Bush,  Calhoun,  Douglass,  Drake, 
Dunn,  Eitzen,  Foster,  Gantt,  Gravely,  Hender- 
son, Hendrick,  Hitchcock,  Holmes,  Holt,  How, 
Howell,  Irwin,  Isbell,  Jackson,  Jamison,  John- 
son, Deeper,  Linton,  Long,  Marmaduke,  Mar- 
vin, Maupin,  McClurg,  McCormack,  McDow. 
ell,  McFerran,  Meyer,  Morrow,  Moss,  Norton 
Orr,  Phillips,  Ray,  Ritchey,  Ross,  Rowland' 
Scott,  Smith  of   Linn,   Smith    of    St  Louis, 


38 


Turner,  Wilson,  Woodson,  Woolfolk,  Wright, 
Vanbuskirk,Zimmerman  and  Mr.  Presidcnt-56. 

Absent  on  Leave  :  Messrs.  Chenault,  Doni- 
phan, Gamble,  Hall  of  Buchanan,  Hall  of  Ran- 
dolph, Pomeroy,  Sawyer  and    Tindall. 

Absent  :  Messrs.  Rankin,  Stewart  and 
Welch. 

Sick  :   Mr.  Pipkin. 

The  resolution  was  then  agreed  to  by  the 
following  vote,  the  ayes  and  noes  having  been 
demanded  : 

Ayes. — Messrs.  Birch,  Breckinridge,  Broad- 
head,  Bridge,  Bush,  Calhoun.Douglas*,  Drake, 
Eitzen,  Foster,  Gantt,  Gravely,  Henderson, 
Hendrick,  Hitchcock,  Holmes,  Holt,  How, 
Irwin,  Isbell,  Jackson,  Jamison,  Johnson,  Bee- 
per, Linton,  Long,  Marmaduke,  Marvin  Mau- 
pin,  McClurg,  McCormack,  McDowell,  McFer- 
ran,  Meyer,  Morrow,  Moss,  Norton,  Orr,  Phil- 
lips, Ray,  Ritchey,  Ross, Rowland,  Scott,Sm:th 
of  Linn,  Smith  of  St.  Louis,  Turner,  Woodson, 
Wright,  Vanbuskirk,  Zimmerman  and  Mr. 
President — 52. 

Noes. —  Messrs.  Allen,  Bartlett,  Bass,  Bast, 
Bogy,  Brown,  Cayce,  ('oilier,  Comingo,  Craw- 
ford, Donnell,  Dunn,  Frayser,  Flood,  Givens, 
Gorin,  Harbin,  Hatcher,  Hill,  Hough,  Howell, 
Hudgins,  Kidd,  Knott,  Matson,  Noel,  Sayre, 
Shackelford  of  Howard,  Sheeley  and  Waller 
—30 

Absent  on  Leave  :  Same  as  before. 

Absent  :  Messrs.  Rankin,  Shackelford  of  St. 
Lous,  Stewart,  Welch  and  Woolfolk. 

The  President  appointed  Messrs.  Birch, 
Zimmerman  and  Drake  on  said  committee. 

The  Convention  proceeded  to  the  considera- 
tion of  the  special  order  for  the  day,  viz :  the 
report  of  the  Committee  on  Federal  Relations 
when 

Mr.  Redd,  from  said  Committee  presented 
the  following  Minority  Report : 

Minority    Report   of    the    Committee    on    Federal 

Relations : 

The  undersigned,  members  of  the  Committee 
on  Federal  Relations,  being  unable  to  agree  to  the 
report  presented  by  the  committee,  desire  to  pre- 
sent for  the  consideration  of  the  Convention  the 
views  that  they  entertain,  and  that  they  believe 
the  people  of  Missouri  entertain  in  relation  to  the 
causes  that  have  led  to  the  present  alarming  con- 
dition of  our  beloved  Union,  and  the  course  that, 
if  pursued,  would  most  likely  lead  to  an  amicable 
adjustment  of  the  issues  involved  in  the  present 
crisis,  preserve  the  Union  from  further  disinteg- 
ration, and  restore  peace  and  harmony  to  our  di- 
vided and  distracted  country. 

Within  the  lifetime  of  many  now  living,  our 
Federal  Government,  the  best  that  the  wisdom 
of  man  ever  devised,  was  created  and  put  in  suc- 
cessful operation;  its  first  President  was  inaugu- 
rated in  March,  1789,  and  from  that  time  through 


a  long  series  of  years  it  continued  to  increase  in 
territory  and  population,  in  wealth  and  power, 
with  a  rapidity  hitherto  unparalled  in  the  history 
of  nations,  until  twenty  sovereign  States  were  ad- 
mitted as  members  of  the  Union,  formed  by  the 
original  thirteen ;  and  until  a  comparatively  re- 
cent period  these  States  were  all  one  people,  one 
in  sympathy,  one  in  fraternal  feeling,  one  in  pa- 
triotic devotion  to  that  common  Union,  of  which 
all  were  proud.  How  is  it  now?  Fraternal  feel- 
ing has  fled ;  a  spirit  of  bitter  and  determined 
hostility  has  taken  its  place;  State  stands  arrayed 
against  State  and  section  against  section,  arming 
for  a  deadly  conflict;  seven  of  the  States  have 
withdrawn  from  the  Union  that  their  fathers 
made,  and  made  a  Union  of  their  own,  and  a  fed- 
eral government  of  their  own;  that  government, 
with  one  of  the  most  clear-headed  and  sagacious 
statesmen  of  the  age  at  its  head,  is  organized,  in 
full  operation,  exercising  all  the  powers  of 
sovereignty,  and  prepared  to  defend  its  sovereign- 
ty by  military  power. 

Other  States,  alarmed  for  the  safety  of  their 
slave  institutions,  are  preparing  to  follow  their 
example ;  the  din  of  preparation  for  civil  strife  is 
heard  on  every  hand,  and  that  once  glorious  Union, 
so  dear  to  the  heart  of  every  American  patriot,  is 
now  in  the  progress  of  its  dissolution. 

There  is  cause  for  all  this ;  a  free  people  capable 
of  self-government  do  not  destroy  institutions  of 
which  they  were  once  so  proud,  and  incur  all  the 
risks  of  civil  strife,  without  some  adequate  cause; 
all  experience  demonstrates  that  mankind  are 
more  disposed  to  bear  with  great  and  pressing 
evils,  than  to  resort  to  revolution  with  all  its 
attendant  horrors. 

It  is  our  duty  to  examine  into  the  causes  that 
have  environed  the  Union  with  penis  and 
threatened  its  utter  destruction,  and,  if  possible, 
devise  a  plan  to  save  it  from  further  disintegra- 
tion. When  we  look  back  over  the  hi>tory  of  our 
country,  we  see  arising  in  the  Northern  States  an 
anti-slavery  party,  whose  sole  cohesive  principle 
was  a  bitter  hostility  to  the  slave  institutions  of 
the  Southern  States.  At  first  that  party  was  weak, 
its  members  few,  and  scattered  abroad,  and  con- 
sidered by  the  Northern  people  themselves  as 
mischievous  fanatics :  it  continued  gradually,  but 
steadily,  to  increase,  until  political  parties  began 
to  court  its  aid;  from  this  time  it  progressed  ra- 
pidly in  numbers,  and  increased  in  its  virulence 
and  hatred  to  Southern  slave  institutions  and  to 
slave  holders.  Political  demagogues,  to  promote 
their  own  selfish  ends,  pandered  to  its  prejudices 
from  the  political  rostrum.  Sensation  preachers, 
to  increase  their  own  importance,  Sabbath  after 
Sabbath,  proclaimed  its  incendiary  doctrines  from 
the  pulpit,  instead  of  preaching  peace  on  earth 
and  good-will  among  men.  It  seized  on  the  lite- 
rature of  the  North  and  corrupted  it  in  all  its 
channels. 


39 


Books  written  to  inculcate  its  destructive  her- 
esies were  introduced  into  its  Sabbath  schools, 
common  schools  and  institutions  of  learning  of 
higher  grade. 

A  large  portion  of  the  Northern  press,  literary, 
religious  and  political,  teemed  with  articles  mis- 
representing and  denouncing  Southern  institu- 
tions and  Southern  men. 

Nourished  and  fostered  by  these  means,  this 
anti-slavery  party  obtained  the  control  of  the 
governments  of  the  free  States,  and  as  those 
States  came  under  their  control  they  violated  the 
compact  that  united  them  to  their  sister  States  of 
the  South.  By  that  compact,  they  had  cove- 
nanted that  a  fugitive  slave  found  within  their 
borders  should  be  delivered  up  upon  demand  of 
his  master.    They  violated  that  compact, 

1st.  By  failing  to  enact  laws  providing  for  his 
delivery. 

2d.  By  refusing  the  master  aid  and  permitting 
their  lawless  citizens  to  depiive  him  of  his  prop- 
erty by  mob  violence. 

3d.  When  Congress  interposed  for  his  relief  by 
the  enactment  of  the  fugitive  slave  law,  they 
trampled  that  law  under  foot,  and  nullified  it  by 
deliberate  State  legislation. 

By  the  compact  that  united  the  Northern  States 
to  their  Southern  sisters,  they  covenanted  that 
they,  upon  demand  made,  would  deliver  up  for 
trial  any  fugitive  from  justice  charged  (by  in- 
dictment) with  treason,  felony  or  other  crime. 

They  have  willfully  and  deliberately  violated 
this  covenant.  They  have  (without  passing  laws 
to  restrain  them)  permitted  their  citizens  to  in- 
vade the  soil  of  the  Southern  States,  steal  the 
slaves,  and  incite  them  to  insurrection;  and  when 
the  felon  has  been  indicted  and  demanded,  they 
have  refused  to  give  him  up,  and,  to  add  insult 
to  injury,  they  have  justified  the  act  by  enuncia- 
ting a  proposirion  that  strikes  at  the  foundation 
of  slave  institutions,  that  as  man  cannot  hold 
property  in  man,  therefore  slave  stealing  is  no 
crime;  and  while  there  has  been  hitherto  no  just 
ground  of  complaint  against  the  Federal  Govern- 
ment, that  Government  has  been  powerless  to 
remedy  the  evil. 

This  anti-slavery  party,  after  having  divided 
church  organizations  and  destroyed  the  noble  old 
"Whig  and  the  gallant  young  American  party,  has 
upon  their  ruins  erected  (in  disregard  of  the 
warning  voice  of  the  Father  of  his  Country)  a 
purely  sectional  party  called  the  Republican  party. 

We  do  not  desire  to  do  that  party  injustice.  It 
should  be  judged  as  all  other  parties  are  judged, 
by  its  platform  and  the  principles  enunciated  by 
its  representative  men,  and  upon  the  enunciation 
of  which  the  party  elevates  them  to  power. 

That  party  through  its  chosen  leader  proclaim- 
ed the  dangerous  and  destructive  heresies  that 
our  Federal  Government  cannot  continue  to  exist 
as  our  fathers  made  it,  part  slave  and  part  free ; 


that  in  that  condition  it  is  a  house  divided  against 
itself  and  cannot  stand;  that  it  must  become  all 
one  or  all  the  other;  that  an  irrepres.-iblc  conflict 
is  progressing  between  freedom  and  slavery,  and 
that  it  must  continue  until  the  public  mind  can 
rest  satisfied  in  the  belief  that  slavery  is  in  the 
process  of  extinction;  that  hereafter  the  slave 
property  of  Southern  men  shall  be  taken  from 
them  by  Congressional  legislation,  if  they  take  it 
with  them  into  the  Territories,  the  common  pro- 
perty of  all  the  States. 

The  free  States,  deaf  to  the  earnest  remonstan- 
ces  of  their  Southern  sisters,  regardless  of  the 
warning  voice  of  a  people  jealous  of  their  rights, 
indorsed  the  doctrines  of  that  party  and  elevated 
its  leader  to  the  Presidential  chair  by  large  major- 
ities in  all  the  free  States,  except  one,  thus  plac- 
ing the  Federal  Government,  to  which  the  South 
had  hitherto  looked  as  its  friend,  in  the  hands  of 
its  enemies. 

These  are  the  causes  that  have  dissolved  the 
Union,  and  have  driven  State  after  Stale  beyond 
its  pale;  and  these  are  the  causes  that  will  drive 
the  remaining  slave  States  out  of  the  Union,  un- 
less these  sectional  issues  can  be  settled  upon 
some  basis  consistent  with  security  to  their  slave 
institutions. 

This  Convention  was  called  for  no  ordinary  pur- 
pose, it  has  assembled  upon  no  ordinary  occasion : 
while  the  people  of  Missouri  will  never  surrender 
their  slave  institutions  at  the  bidding  of  any 
earthly  power,  they  ardently  desire  the  preserva- 
tion of  the  Union  and  the  preservation  of  their 
slave  institutions  in  the  Union;  this  is  the  high 
mission  to  which  this  Convention  is  called;  this 
can  be  accomplished  only  by  action, prompt  de- 
cided action.  Delay  is  dangerous ;  we  know  not, 
no  human  sagacity  can  penetrate  the  dark  vail 
that  hides  the  future  and  tell  us  at  what  hour 
the  country  may  be  aroused  from  its  repose  by 
the  clash  of  arms.  The  plan  proposed  by  the 
Committee  is,  that  this  Convention  request  the 
Legislature  to  pass  an  act  calling  on  Congress  to 
call  a  National  Convention,  to  propose  a  basis  of 
settlement  in  the  shape  of  amendments  to  the 
Constitution,  to  be  afterwards  submitted  to  the 
States  for  ratification  or  rejection.  This  amounts 
to  doing  nothing,  literally  nothing;  if  the  plan 
was  practicable,  it  would  require  eighteen  months 
or  two  years  to  carry  it  into  effect.  But  is  it 
practicable,  is  there  a  reasonable  ground  to  hope 
that  it  Avould  save  the  Union?  Let  us  see:  Con- 
gress can  only  act  when  called  on  by  two  thirds 
of  the  States;  Congress  takes  the  po>iiion  that 
the  seceded  States  are  yet  in  the  Union.  On  this 
basis  it  would  require  the  action  of  the  Legisla- 
tures of  twenty-three  States  uniting  in  the  call. 
Several  of  these  Legislatures  have  already  taken 
their  position  against  any  amendments,  conse- 
quently would  not  unite  in  the  call,  and  the  plan 
would  fall  still-born. 


40 


But  even  if  such  a  Convention  should  assemble, 
how  would  matters  stand?  Eight  slave  States 
(if  they  remained  in  the  Union,  which  is  exceed- 
ingly doubtful)  would  go  into  convention  with 
nineteen  free  States,  and  take  such  amendments 
as  those  States,  controlled  by  an  anti-slavery 
party,  might  be  disposed  to  grant. 

The  preservation  of  the  Union,  in  the  opinion 
of  the  minority,  should  be  the  earnest  desire  not 
only  of  every  American  patriot  but  also  of  every 
friend  of  civil  liberty  throughout  the  habitable 
globe;  that  this  may  be  done  is  the  earnest 
prayer  of  every  American  mother  throughout 
this  great  Republic;  that  it  shall  be  preserved  is 
the  fixed  determination  of  a  large  majority  of 
the  citizens  of  the  border  slave  States  whose  cit- 
izens have  ever  been  not  only  loyal  to  the  Con- 
stitution and  the  Union,  but  also  among  the  fore- 
most in  times  past,  when  their  country  was  in 
danger,  to  peril  their  lives  to  uphold  her  institu- 
tions. These  States  by  assuming  the  position  of 
mediators  between  the  hostile  sections,  and  tak- 
ing a  decided  position,  and  proclaiming  to  those 
sectional  parties  who  are  now  arming  for  frater- 
nal strife,  that  they  shall  keep  the  peace— these 
States  by  meeting  each  other  in  convention,  and 
agreeing  on  measures  of  compromise  and  ad- 
justment, founded  on  the  principles  of  equal 
rights  and  justice  to  all,  and  by  firmly,  yet  in  a 
spirit  of  fraternal  kindness,  insisting  upon  the 
compromises  so  agreed  upon  as  the  basis  on 
which  all  irritating  differences  shall  be  settled, 
can,  in  the  opinion  of  the  undersigned,  be  the 
means  of  preserving  the  Union,  reconstructing 
it  upon  a  permanent  basis,  reconciling  conflict- 
ing interests,  and  restoring  peace  and  tranquility 
to  the  country. 

Resolved,    by    the  People  of   the  State    of 
Missouri,  in  Convention  assembled: 

1.  That  the  State  of  Missouri  invites  the  States 
of  Virginia,  North  Carolina,  Maryland,  Ken- 
tucky, Tennessee,  Arkansas  and  Delaware,  to 
send  Commissioners  to  meet  in  Convention  with 
Commissioners  appointed  by  Missouri,  at  the  city 

of   Nashville,   Tennessee,  on  the day  of 

,  next,  to  agree  upon  a  basis  of  settlement, 


by  way  of  constitutional  amendments  that  will 
preserve  the  Union,  and  afford  an  adequate  guar- 
antee for  the  preservation  of  their  slave  institu- 
tions and  the  constitutional  rights  of  their  citi- 
zens, and  to  take  such  steps  as  they  may  deem 
necessary  to  have  such  amendments  presented  to 
the  people  of  the  free  States  for  ratification  or 
rejection. 

2.  That be  and  they  are  hereby  ap- 
pointed Commissioners  to  represent  the  State  of 
Missouri  in  said  Convention. 

3.  That is  hereby  appointed  a  Commissioner 

to  tlie  State  of  Virginia; Commissioner  to 

North  Carolina; Commissioner  to  Mary- 
land;   Commissioner  to  Kentucky; 


Commissioner  to  Tennessee; 
er  to  Arkansas,  and 


Commission- 


—  Commissioner  to 
Delaware;  and  said  Commissioners  are  hereby 
authorized  by  the  State  of  Missouri  to  present 
to  the  proper  authorities  of  the  said  States,  re- 
spectively, a  copy  of  these  resolutions,  and  to 
urge  upon  them  the  appointment  of  Commission- 
ers to  the  Convention  contemplated  therein. 

4.  Resolved,  That  the  Commissioners  ap- 
pointed to  said  Convention  by  Missouri  are  di- 
rected to  present  to  said  Convention  for  their  con- 
sideration the  resolutions  commonly  known 
as  the  Crittenden  compromise  measures, 
extending  the  provisions  with  reference  to 
Territory  south  of  the  line,  to  after-ac- 
quired Territory,  and  to  say,  on  behalf  of  Mis- 
souri, that  those  resolutionss,  or  any  other  basis 
of  settlement  upon  which  the  border  slave  States 
can  agree  will  bo  satisfactory  to  Missouri. 

The  people  of  the  State  of  Missouri  being  sat- 
isfied that  the  plan  proposed  in  these  resolutions 
will  (unless  interrupted  by  civil  strife)  not  only 
preserve  the  Union,  but  afford  a  fair  prospect  for  a 
reconstruction  by  bringing  back  the  seceded 
States ;  they,  therefore,  earnestly  appeal  to  the 
General  Government  and  the  seceded  States  to 
stay  the  arm  of  military  power  and  preserve  the 
peace  until  the  plan  proposed  can  be  fully  tried. 
And,  to  enforce  such  appeal,  they  would  state  it 
as  their  settled  conviction,  that  an  attempt  at  co- 
ercion, under  any  pretext,  would  result  in  civil 
strife,  and  forever  destroy  all  hope  for  the  preser- 
vation or  reconstruction  of  the  Union. 

JOHN  T.  REDD, 
H.  HOUGH. 

Mr.  Moss  offered  the  following  amendment 
to  the  report  of  the  Committee  : 

Amend  the  fifth  resolution  by  adding  as  fol- 
lows, viz  :  And  further,  Believing  that  the  fate 
of  Missouri  depends  upon  a  peaceable  adjust- 
ment of  our  present  difficulties,  she  Avill  nev- 
er countenance  or  aid  a  seceding  State  in  ma- 
king war  on  the  general  Government,  nor  will 
she  furnish  men  or  money  for  the  purpose  of 
aiding  the  general  Government  in  any  attempts 
to  coerce  a  seceding  State. 

Pending  the  consideration  of  the  amend- 
ment, on  motion  of  Mr.  Stewart,  the  Conven- 
tion adjourned  until  three  o'clock  p.  m. 

EVENING  SESSION. 

The  Convention  met  pursuant  to  adjourn- 
ment. 

The  Convention  having  under  consideration 
the  amendment  offered  by  Mr.  Moss,  after  dis- 
cussion, 

On  motion  of  Mr.  Doniphan,  the  amend- 
ment was  laid  on  the  table  and  ordered  to  be 
printed. 


41 


The  President  laid  before  the  Convention  the 
following  communications,  which  were  read 
and  laid  on  the  table. 

Hall  of  the  Convention,  ) 
St.  Louis,  March  11, 1861.    J 
To  the  President  of  the  Missouri  Convention: 

I  beg  leave  to  call  the  attention  of  the  mem- 
bers of  the  Convention  to  the  enclosed  opinion 
of  my  legal  adviser,  and  the  law  officers  of  this 
State,  as  to  my  duties,  as  Auditor  of  the  State, 
in  auditing  and  allowing  the  per  diem  and  mile- 
age of  the  members  and  officers  of  your  body, 
under  the  provisions  of  an  act  entitled  "An  Act 
to  provide  for  the  calling  a  State  Convention, 
approved  January  21st,  1861." 

I  regret  that  I  am  unable,  under  the  law,  to 
issue  warrants  for  the  payment  of  members,  &c. 
I  will  be  happy  at  any  time,  when  it  suits 
the  pleasure  and  convenience  of  the  Conven- 
tion, to  audit  the  claims  and  issue  certificates 
to  the  members,  believing  that  the  present 
General  Assembly  will  soon  pass  an  appropria- 
tion act  for  the  pay  of  the  Convention  and  its 
officers. 

Very  respectfully. 

Your  obedient  servant, 

WM.  S.  MOSELEY, 
Aud.  of  Pub.  Accounts  of  Mo. 


St.  Louis,  Mo.,  March  11,  1861. 

Hon.  W.  S.  Moseley,  Auditor  of  Public  Accounts : 

Sir  : — In  reply  to  inquiry  as  to  your  duties  in 
relation  to  the  accounts  of  members,  officers  and 
assistants  of  the  Convention  now  in  session,  I 
would  respectfully  say  that,  in  my  opinion,  as 
the  act  calling  the  Convention  provides  that 
their  compensation  shall  be  the  same  as  now 
provided  by  law  for  members,  officers  and  as- 
sistants of  the  House  of  Representatives,  you 
are  authorized  to  audit  their  accounts  and 
issue  certificates,  as  in  other  cases,  where  there 
has  been  no  appropriation ;  but  where  the  ap- 
propriation has  been  exhausted,  or  until  an  ap- 
propriation shall  have  been  made  you  can  not 
draw  warrants  in  their  favor  for  the  amounts 
respectively  due  them. 
Respectfully, 

JAS.  PROCTOR  KNOTT. 

On  motion  of  Mr.  Doniphan  the  Conven- 
tion adjourned. 


TE^TH 


D  A.Y, 

TUESDAY,  MARCH  12,  1861. 


The  Convention  met  pursuant  to  adjourn- 
ment, and  was  opened  with  prayer  by  the  Rev. 
Mr.  Monroe. 

The  journal  of  the  proceedings  of  yesterday 
was  read  and  approved. 

Mr.  Norton  called  up  the  amendments,  of- 
fered by  Mr.  Moss,  to  the  fifth  resolution  of 
the  Committee  on  Federal  Relations,  and  pend- 
ing the  consideration  of  which, 

On  motion  of  Mr.  Welch,  the  Convention 
adjourned  until  two  o'clock  p.  it. 

EVENING  SESSION. 

The  Convention  met  pursuant  to  adjourn- 
ment, and  resumed  the  consideration  of  the 
amendments  offered  by  Mr.  Moss. 

Mr.  Ritghet  offered  to  amend  the  first  line 
by  adding  the  word  "  prosperity  "  in  lieu  of 
"fate,"  which  amendment  was  rejected. 

Also,  the  following :  In  the  third  line  after 
the  word  "never,"  "while  she  stays  in  the 
Union,"  which  was  rejected. 


Mr.  Douglass  offered  the  following  as  a  sub- 
stitute for  the  amendment,  which  was  rejected 
by  the  following  vote,  the  ayes  and  noes  having 
been  called  for  by  Mr.  Douglass  : 

"And,  entertaining  these  views,  we  hereby 
declare  that  Missouri  will  not  countenance  or 
aid  a  seceding  State  in  making  war  on  the  Fed- 
eral Government,  nor  will  she  countenance  or 
aid  the  General  Government  in  any  attempt  to 
coerce  the  submission  of  a  seceding  State  by 
military  force." 

Ayes — Messrs.  Birch,  Chenault,  Doniphan, 
Donnell,  Douglass,  Drake,  Dunn,  Gamble,  Giv- 
ens,  Gorin,  Hatcher,  Hough,  Irwin,  Knott,  Mar- 
maduke,  Noell,  Norton,  Phillips,  Ray,  Redd, 
Sayre,  Shackelford  of  St.  Louis,  Shackelford 
of  Howard,  Watkins  and  Mr.  President — 25. 

Noes — Messrs.  Allen,  Bartlett,  Bass,  Bast, 
Bogy,  Breckinridge,  Broadhead,  Bridge,  Bush, 
Brown,  Calhoun,  Cayce,  Comingo,  Crawford, 
Eitzen,  Frayser,  Flood,  Foster,  Gantt,  Grave- 
ly, Hall  of  Buchanan,  Harbin,  Henderson, 
Hendrick,  Hill,  Hitchcock,  Holmes,  Holt,  How, 
Howell,   Hudgins,    Isbell,   Jackson,  Jamison, 


42 


Johnson,  Kidd,  Leeper,  Linton,  Long,  Marvin, 
Matson,  Maupin,  McClurg,  McCormack,  Mc- 
Dowell, McFerran,  Meyer,  Morrow,  Moss,  Orr, 
Pomeroy,  Rankin,  "Ritchey,  Rowland,  Sawyer, 
Scott,  Sheeley,  Smith  of  St.  Louis,  Smith  of 
Linn,  Stewart,  Tindall,  Turner,  Waller,  Wood- 
son, Woolfolk  Wright,  Vanbuskirk  and  Zim- 
merman— 68. 

Absent — Messrs.  Collier,  Hall  of  Randolph, 
Ross,  Welch  and  Wilson. 
Sick — Mr.  Pipkin. 


Mr.  Howell  offered  the  following  amend- 
ment to  the  amendment  of  Mr.  Moss  : 

Amend  the  amendment  by  striking  out  the 
word  "fate"  in  first  line,  and  inserting  the 
word  "welfare,"  in  the  place  thereof;  and  by 
striking,  out  the  word  "never,"  in  the  third 
line,  and  inserting  the  word  "not"  in  place  of 
the  same,  pending  which, 

On  motion  of  Mr.  Hudgins,  the  Convention 
adjourned. 


ELEVENTH    DAY. 


The  Convention  met  pursuant  to  adjourn- 
ment, and  was  opened  with  prayer  by  the  Rev. 
Mr.  Monroe. 

The  journal  of  the  proceedings  was  read  and 
approved. 

Mr.  Moss  accepted  the  amendment  offered 
by  Mr.  Howell,  on  yesterday,  to  his  amend- 
ment to  the  fifth  resolution  of  the  Committee 
on  Federal  Relations. 

Mr.  Birch,  from  the  committee  appointed 
under  a  resolution  of  the  Convention,  adopted, 
to  inquire  into  the  conspiracy  foreshadowed  in 
the  article  which  appeared  in  the  Republican 
of  the  11th  inst.,  on  leave  of  the  Convention 
made  the  following  report : 

Report  of  Committee  on   Conspiracy : 

The  committee  appointed  under  a  resolution  of 
the  Convention,  adopted  on  the  11th  instant,  to 
inquire  into  the  conspiracy  which  was  deemed  to 
be  foreshadowed  in  a  communication  that  had 
appeared  in  the  "Republican,"  of  that  morning, 
report  herewith  a  communication  from  Louis  V. 
Bogy  and  from  William  J.  Chester,  and  respect- 
fully submit  themselves  to  such  further  directions 
(if  any)  as  the  Convention  may  see  fit  to  give 
them. 

If,  however,  it  shall  be  believed  from  these 
statements  that  any  purpose  which  may  have  ex- 
isted to  wrest  the  State  from  its  legitimate  rela- 
tions to  the  Federal  Government,  by  illegal,  per- 
verse, or  revolutionary  agencies,  has  been  aban- 
doned in  deference  to  the  unfaltering  and  over- 
whelming public  sentiment  with  which  it  has 
been  confronted,  it  is  then  further  respectfully 
submitted  whether  the  interests  of  the  public  re- 
quire that  any  further  steps  be  taken,  or  any  fur- 
ther investigations  be  prosecuted,  under  the  reso- 
lution of  the  Convention. 

JAMES  H.  BIRCH, 
CHARLES  DRAKE, 
GEORGE  W.  ZIMMERMAN. 
Committee. 


WEDNESDAY,  MARCH  13,  1861. 

St.  Louis,  March  12,  1861. 
Messrs.  Birch,  Zimmerman  and  Drake,  Com- 
mittee— Present : 

Gentlemen  :  I  was  summoned,  yesterday,  to 
appear  before  you  as  a  committee,  appointed  by 
the  State  Convention,  now  in  session  in  this  city, 
to  testify  to  certain  facts  supposed  to  be  within 
my  knowledge. 

In  appearing  before  you,  I  wish  it  distinctly  un- 
derstood that  I  do  so  voluntarily,  as  I  deny  both 
the  power  of  the  Convention,  or  that  of  the  com- 
mittee appointed  by  it,  to  summon  any  citizen  of 
the  State  to  appear  before  it  as  a  witness;  this 
power  belongs  to  the  Grand  Juries  of  the  coun- 
try, and  is  a  power  used  to  ferret  out  crime  by 
them;  but  entertaining  as  I  do  the  greatest  re- 
spect for  the  Convention,  as  a  body,  called  into 
existence  under  a  law  of  the  State,  and  also  for 
the  members  thereof  personally,  I  waive  what 
I  consider  my  right  as  a  citizen,  and  accordingly 
appear. 

The  publication  Avhich  appeared  in  the  "Mis- 
souri Republican"  over  the  signature  of  "E,"  is 
not  substantially  correct  as  containing  the  sub- 
stance of  a  conversation  between  me  and  the  per- 
son who  is  supposed  to  be  author  of  it. 

I  have  read  the  resolutions  of  the  Convention 
and  the  speech  of  the  mover  of  them,  and  I  must 
confess  that  I  am  at  a  loss  to  understand  how 
either  could  justify  the  charge  made,  based  on  this 
communication.  In  justice,  However,  to  the  per- 
sons who  called  on  me,  and  who  are  charged  with 
the  crime  of  treason,  I  must  say  that  I  know 
nothing  whatever  to  sustain  the  charge.  Certain 
gentlemen  of  standing  in  this  city,  and  who  arc 
my  personal  and  political  friends,  did  call  on  me 
last  week,  with  a  paper  Avhich  was  very  well 
written,  setting  forth  that  the  time  had  come— in 
view  of  the  fact,  that  Virginia  had  or  would  soon 
join  the  Southern  Confederacy,  and  carry  with  her 
Kentucky  and  the  other  horder  States— for  the 
friends  of  Southern  rights  to  come  together  for 
consultation,  and  with  a  view  of  agreeing  on  some 


43 


line  of  policy  required  by  the  exigencies  of  the 
times.  The  conversation  between  these  gentle- 
men and  myself  was  of  a  desultory  and  general 
character,  and  it  is  with  hesitation  that  I  consent 
to  trouble  you  with  it,  for  it  really  amounts  to 
nothing  beyond  a  legitimate  purpose  of  party  or- 
ganization, in  which  there  was  nothing  improper 
or  wrong,  and  only  with  a  view  of  making  their 
action  efficient.  Although  I  dissented  from  them 
as  to  the  propriety  of  their  course,  yet  my  objec- 
tion was  not  because  there  was  anything  wrong 
or  improper  in  the  proposition,  but  because  I 
thought  tie  movement  was  calculated  to  do 
harm,  in  view  of  the  efforts  now  being  made  to 
unite  the  Democratic  and  Bell  parties  on  some 
common  conservative  ground,  to  defeat  the  Black 
Republicans  at  the  next  April  election. 

I  furthermore  explained  to  them,  that  accord- 
ing to  my  understanding  of  the  interests  of  Mis- 
souri, with  twenty  millions  of  State  bonds,  and 
six  to  eight  millions  of  city  and  county  bonds  on 
the  markets  of  the  world,  and  the  great  interests 
of  the  mercantile,  manufacturing,  and  industrial 
portion  of  our  people,  we  should  move  in  a  mat- 
ter of  this  magnitude  with  the  greatest  caution 
and  prudence.  Some  of  the  gentlemen  present 
charging  me  with  inconsistency,  and  as  a  blind 
follower  of  the  Missouri  Republican,  I  replied 
that  the  charge  was  not  true;  that  I  was  a 
Southern  man,  and  always  had  been,  and  was 
as  much  opposed  to  Black  Republicanism  as  any- 
body could  possibly  be ;  but,  looking  upon  their 
effort  as  calculated  to  bring  defeat  upon  us  again 
at  the  next  April  election,  I  -was  opposed  to  then- 
movement,  and  would  do  all  in  my  power  to 
defeat  them  in  their  purpose.  Much  more 
might  be  repeated  of  the  same  nature,  but  the 
matter  is  too  trivial  to  engage  the  attention  of 
anybody.  I  certainly  did  not  understand  that 
any  proposition  was  made  to  me,  looking  like 
treason  or  conspiracy,  or  that  can  by  any  distor- 
tion of  language  or  confusion  of  ideas  amount  to 
the  highest  crime  known  to  civilized  nations. 
The  subject  was  fair  and  legitimate  as  a  purpose 
for  party  organization  by  gentlemen  of  good  stand- 
ing, and  as  such  I  understood  it  and  opposed  it  for 
the  reasons  already  given.  My  object  in  speaking 
of  this  occurrence  to  other  parties  was  to  get  them 
to  unite  with  me  to  prevent  the  proposed  organi- 
zation, believing,  if  successful,  it  would  again 
lead  to  our  defeat.  No  one  regrets  this  occur- 
rence more  than  I  do,  as  it  is  calculated  to  place 
other  parties  as  well  as  myself  in  an  unpleasant 
position.  The  facts  do  not,  in  the  least,  justify 
the  action  of  the  Convention,  the  speech  of  the 
mover  of  the  resolutions,  or  the  comments  of 
one  of  the  city  papers. 

Repeating  my  sentiments  of  respect  for  the 
Convention,  I  am,  &c, 

LEWIS  V.  BOGY. 


P.  S.  As  the  action  of  the  Convention  in  rela- 
tion to  this  matter  has  been  the  occasion  of  a 
good  deal  of  talk  in  this  city  to  my  prejudice,  I 
have  concluded  to  send  a  copy  of  this  paper  to 
the  "Missouri  Republican"  for  publication  to- 
morrow morning,  so  that  the  matter  may  be  set 
right  before  this  community  at  once. 

LEWIS.  V.  BOGY, 
St.  Louis,  March  13, 1861. 
To   Messrs.  Birch,  Drake    and   Zimmerman, 

Committee  of  the  Convention,  &c: 

Gentlemen  :  Having  Appeared  before  you  in 
compliance  with  your  subpoena,  I  proceed  to  make 
such  a  statement  as  you  have  requested  of  me,  omit- 
ting the  name  of  the  person  to  whom  I  shall  allude, 
and  also  declining  to  swear  to  my  statement  at 
the  present  time;  but  will  not  refuse  to  surrender 
the  name  of  the  person,  or  to  swear  to  what  I 
shall  here  state,  if  required  to  do  so  by  an  order 
of  the  Convention. 

On  the  second  or  third  day  of  the  session  of 
your  Convention  in  this  place,  I  met  with  a  gentle- 
man residing  in  one  of  the  interior  counties  of  the 
State,  and  whom  I  had  known  as  a  friend  and 
admirer  of  Mr.  Yancey  of  Alabama,  and,  like  that 
gentleman,  a  thorough  and  undisguised  seces- 
sionist. He  told  me  that  your  Convention  was 
too  conservative,  and  that,  in  case  you  passed  no 
secession  ordinance,  there  would  be  a  concert  of 
action  agreed  upon,  throughout  the  State,  where- 
by the  State  would  nevertheless  be  got  out  of  the 
Union.  He  further  said  that  there  were  at  that 
time  delegates  or  committees  in  the  city  from 
nearly  all  the  principal  towns  in  the  State,  and 
that  he  understood  there  was  to  be  a  meeting  of 
them  for  the  purpose  of  agreeing  upon  a  defi- 
nite course  and  concert  of  action.  He  mention- 
ed especially  the  name  of  a  distinguished  citizen 
of  this  State  who  had  encouraged  the  movement, 
but  whose  name,  for  the  reason  already  stated,  I 
decline  to  give  at  present. 

Two  days  after  this,  I  met  the  same  gentleman 
and  the  conversation  was  renewed.  He  then  said 
that  he  believed  the  plan  above  stated  had  been 
abandoned,  as  it  would  be  useless  to  attempt  to 
carry  it  out  at  present,  against  what  seemed  to  be 
the  strong  Union  sentiment  that  had  taken  hold 
of  the  public  mind. 

In  this  statement  I  have  given  but  the  substance 
of  the  conversations  alluded  to,  and  do  not  pre- 
tend to  have  stated  the  words,  but  the  substantial 
facts.  Very  respectfully, 

WM.  J.  CHESTER. 

The  report  was  read  and  laid  on  the  table, 
and  ordered  to  be  printed. 

Mr.  Welch  moved  that  the  Convention  ad- 
journ until  three  o'clock  p.  M.,  which  motion 
was  decided  in  the  negative. 

On  motion  of  Mr.  Dunn  the  Convention  ad- 
journed until  two  o'clock  p.  m. 


44 


EVENING  SESSION. 

The  Convention  met  pursuant  to  adjourn- 
ment, and  resumed  the  consideration  of  the 
pending  amendment. 

Mr.  Gantt  moved  that,  until  otherwise  or- 


dered by  the  Convention,  the  hour  of  adjourn- 
ment be  three  o'clock  p.  m.,  which  was 
adopted. 

On  motion  of  Mr.  Gamble  the  Convention 
adjourned. 


TWELFTH 


The  Convention  met  pursuant  to  adjourn- 
ment, and  was  opened  with  prayer  by  the  Rev. 
Mr.  Monroe. 

The  Journal  of  the  proceedings  of  yesterday 
was  read  and  approved. 

Mr.  Gamble,  from  the  Committee  on  Feder- 
al Kelations,  presented  the  following,  which 
was,  by  leave  of  the  Convention,  read,  laid  on 
the  table,  and  ordered  to  be  printed. 

Whereas,  It  is  probable  that  the  Conven- 
tion of  the  State  of  Virginia,  now  in  session, 
will  request  a  meeting  of  Delegates  from  the 
Border  States,  for  the  purpose  of  devising  some 
plan  for  the  adjustment  of  our  National  diffi- 
culties,— and,  Whereas,  The  State  of  Missouri 
participates  strongly  in  the  desire  for  such  ad- 
justment, and,  desiring  to  show  respect  for  the 
wishes  of  Virginia,  therefore,  be  it 

Resolved,  That  this  Convention  will  elect 

Delegates,  whose  duty  it  shall  be  to  attend,  at 
such  time  and  place  as  may  be  designated  by 
the. Convention  of  the  State  of  Virginia,  for  the 
meeting  of  Delegates  from  the  Border  States ; 
and  if  there  should  assemble  then  and  there 
Delegates  duly  accredited  from  a  majority  of 
the  States  invited  to  such  conference,  then  the 
Delegates  from  this  Convention  shall  enter  into 
conference  with  them,  and  shall  endeavor  to 


THURSDAY,  MARCH  14,  1861. 
devise  a  plan  for  the  amicable  and  equitable 
adjustment  of  all  matters  in  difference  between 
the  States  of  this  Union.  And  the  Delegates 
appointed  under  this  resolution,  shall  report 
their  proceedings,  in  such  conference,  and  any 
plan  that  may  there  be  agreed  upon,  to  this 
Convention,  for  its  approval  or  rejection. 

The  question  before  the  Convention  being 
the  adoption  of  the  amendment  offered  by  Mr. 
Moss, 

When  the  President  laid  before  the  Conven- 
tion the  following  communication : 

Office  of  the  St.  Louis  Agricultu- 
ral and  Mechanical  Association. 
St.  Louis,  March  14,  1861. 
Hon.  Sterling  Price, 

President  of  the  State  Convention. 
Sir  :  The  Directors  of  the  St.  Louis  Agri- 
cultural and  Mechanical  Association,  would  be 
pleased  to  present  to  each  member  of  the  Mis- 
souri State  Convention,  a  copy  of  their  Fifth 
Annual  Report. 

If  acceptable  to  the  Convention,  said  report 
will  be  sent  to  the  Secretary  of  the  Conven- 
tion for  delivery.        Very  respectfully, 

CHAS.  TODD,  President. 
On  motion  of  Mr.  Broadhead,  the  Conven- 
tion adjourned. 


DO 
"I 


THIRTEENTH    DAY, 


The  Convention  met,  pursuant  to  adjourn- 
ment, and  was  opened  with  prayer  by  the  Rev. 
Mr.  Monroe. 

The  Journal  of  the  proceedings  of  yesterday 
was  read  and  approved. 

The  question  before  the  Convention  being  on 
the  adoption  of  the  amendment  to  the  fifth  res- 
olution of  the  report  of  the  Committee  on  Fed- 
eral Relations, 

Mr.  Gantt  moved  that  the  Convention  do 
adjourn  until  half  past  three  o'clock  this  after- 


FRIDAY  MORNING,  March  15,  1861. 
noon,  which  motion  was  decided  in  the  nega- 
tive. 

On  motion  of  Mr.  Wright,  the  Convention 
adjourned  until  3  o'clock,  p.  M. 

EVENING  SESSION. 

The  Convention  met,  pursuant  to  adjourn- 
ment, and  resumed  the  consideration  of  the 
question  which  was  before  them  at  the  hour  of 
adjournment. 

On  motion  of  Mr.  McCormack,  the  Conven- 
tion adjourned. 


45 


FOURTEENTH    DAY, 


SATURDAY  MORNING,  MARCH  16,  1861. 


The  Convention  met,  pursuant  to  adjourn- 
ment, and  -was  opened  with  prayer  by  Rev.  Mr. 
Monroe. 

The  Journal  of  proceedings  of  yesterday 
was  read  and  approved. 

Mr.  Sayre  offered  the  following1,  as  a  sub- 
stitute for  the  pending  amendment  of  Mr. 
Moss : 

Add  to  fifth  resolution,  as  follows:  "That 
the  commencement  of  hostilities,  by  either, 
must  necessarily  be  regarded  by  Missouri  as 
unfriendly  and  offensive/'  which  was  disa- 
greed to. 

Mr.  Redd  offered  the  following  amendment, 
to  the  pending  amendment,  which  was  disa- 
greed to  : 

Amend  the  amendment  by  adding  to  the  end 
thereof,  after  the  word  "  State,"  the  following 
words:  "while  any  hope  of  such  adjustment 
remains." 

The  question  recurring  upon  agreeing  to  the 
amendment  of  Mr.  Moss,  it  was  decided  in  the 
negative  by  the  following  vote,  the  ayes  and 
noes  having  been  previously  demanded  : 

Ayes — Messrs.  Bass,  Bast,  Brown,  Chenault, 
Collier,  Comingo,  Crawford,  Donnell,  Dunn, 
Frayser,  Flood,  Givens,  Gorin,  Harbin,  Hatch- 
er, Hill,  Howell,  Hudgins,  Knott,  Matson, 
Moss,  Norton,  Ray,  Redd,  Sawyer,  Sayre, 
Sheeley,   Waller,  Watkins  and  Woodson— 30. 


Noes — Messrs.  Allen,  Bartlett,  Birch,  Bogy, 
Breckinridge,  Broadhead,  Bridge,  Bush,  Cal- 
houn, Cayce,  Douglass,  Drake,  Foster,  Gam- 
ble, Gantt,  Gravely,  Hall  of  Buchanan,  Hall  of 
Randolph,  Henderson,  Hendrick,  Hitchcock, 
Holmes,  Holt,  Hough,  How,  Irwin,  Isbell,  Jack- 
son, Jamison,  Johnson,  Kidd,  Deeper,  Linton, 
Long,  Marmaduke,  Marvin,  McClurg,  McCor- 
mack,  McDowell,  McFerran,  Meyer,  Morrow, 
Noell,  Orr,  Phillips,  Pomeroy,  Rankin,  Ritchey, 
Rowland,  Scott,  Shackelford  of  Howard,  Shack- 
elford of  St.  Louis,  Smith  of  Linn,  Smith  of 
St.  Louis,  Tindall,  Turner,  Woolfolk,  Wright, 
Vanbuskirk,  Zimmerman  and  Mr.  President 
—61. 

Absent — Messrs.  Doniphan,  Eitzen,  Mau- 
pin,  Ross,  Stewart,  Welch  and  Wilson. 

Sick — Mr.  Pipkin. 

Mr.  Phillips  offered  the  following  resolu- 
tion, which  was  adopted : 

Resolved,  That  the  thanks  of  this  Convention 
are  due,  and  are  hereby  tendered,  to  the  offi- 
cers of  the  St.  Louis  Agricultural  and  Mechan- 
ical Association  for  their  kindness  and  liberali- 
ty in  presenting  to  the  Convention  the  St.  Louis 
Fair  report,  for  1860. 

Mr.  Wright  moved  the  adoption  of  the  first 
resolution  of  the  report  of  the  Committee  on 
Federal  Relations. 

Convention  adjourned. 


FIFTEENTH    E^Y, 


The  Convention  met,  pursuant  to  adjourn- 
ment, and  was  opened  with  prayer  by  the  Rev. 
Mr.  Monroe. 

The  Journal  of  the  proceedings  of  Saturday 
last,  was  read  and  approved. 

Mr.  Doniphan,  by  leave  of  the  Convention, 
was  allowed  to  record  his  vote  in  the  affirma- 
tive, on  the  adoption  of  the  amendment  to  the 
fifth  resolution,  as  offered  by  Mr.  Moss. 

The  question  before  the  Convention,  being 
the  adoption  of  the  first  resolution  of  the  series 


MONDAY,  MARCH  18,  1861. 

reported  by  the  Committee  on  Federal  Rela- 
tions, when, 

On  motion  of  Mr.  Welch,  the  Convention 
adjourned  until  2  o'clock,  p.  m. 

EVENING  SESSION. 

The  Convention  met,  pursuant  to  adjourn- 
ment, and  resumed  the  consideration  of  the 
question  which  was  before  them  at  the  hour  of 
adjournment,  when, 

On  motion  of  Mr.  Watkins,  the  Conven- 
tion adjourned. 


46 


SIXTEENTH    DAY, 

TUESDAY  MORNING,  MARCH  19,  1861. 


The  Convention  met,  pursuant  to  adjourn- 
ment, and  was  opened  with  prayer  by  the  Rev. 
Mr.  Monroe. 

The  Journal  of  the  proceedings  of  yesterday 
was  read  and  approved. 

The  Convention,  on  motion,  proceeded  to 
the  consideration  of  the  first  resolution,  when 

Mr.  Redd  offered  the  following  amendment: 

Amend  by  striking  out  the  word  "  cause," 
and  inserting  in  the  place  thereof  the  word 
"  motive,"  which  was  rejected. 

The  question  recurring  on  the  adoption  of 
the  resolution,  it  was  decided  in  the  affirma- 
tive, by  the  following  vote,  the  ayes  and  noes 
having  been  demanded  by  Mr.  Hough. 

Ayes — Messrs.  Allen,  Bartlett,  Bass,  Birch, 
Bogy,  Breckinridge,  Broadhead,  Bridge, 
Brown,  Bush,  Calhoun,  Cayce,  Collier,  Co- 
mingo,  Crawford,  Doniphan,  Donnell,  Doug- 
lass, Drake,  Dunn,  Eitzen,  Erayser,  Flood, 
Eoster,  Gamble,  Gantt,  Givens,  Gorin,  Grave- 
ly, Hall  of  Buchanan,  Hall  of  Randolph,  Hatch- 
er, Hendrick,  Hitchcock,  Holmes.  Holt,  Hough, 
How,  Howell,  Hudgins,  Irwin,  Isbell,  Jackson, 
Jamison,  Johnson,  Kidd,  Deeper,  Linton,  Long, 
Marmaduke,  Marvin,  Matson,  Maupin,  Mc- 
Clurg,  McCormack,  McDowell,  McEerran, 
Meyer,  Morrow,  Moss,  Noell,  Norton,  Orr, 
Phillips,  Pomeroy,  Ray,  Rankin,  Redd,  Ritch- 
ey,  Rowland,  lawyer,  Sayre,  Scott,  Shackel- 
ford of  Howard,  Shackelford  of  St.  Louis, 
Sheeley,  Smith  of  Linn,  Smith  of  St.  Louis, 
Tindall,  Turner,  Waller,  Watkins,  Welch, 
Woodson,  Woolfolk,  Wright,  Vanbuskirk,  Zim- 
merman, and  Mr.  President — 89. 

No— Mr.  Bast— 1. 

Absent — Messrs.  Harbin,  Henderson,  Hill, 
Ross,  Stewart  and  Wilson. 

Sick — Messrs.  Chenault,  Knott  and  Pipkin. 

Mr.  Hough  moved  to  amend  the  report  of 
the  committee,  by  adding  to  them,  after  the 
fifth  resolution,  the  following  as  an  additional 
resolution,  which  was  laid  on  the  table  and 
ordered  to  be  printed  : 

Resolved,  That  in  order  to  secure  our  just 
rights  in  the  Union  under  the  Constitution,  it 
is  of  the  greatest  importance  that  the  public 
peace  should  be  preserved,  and  it  is  the  opinion 
of  this  Convention  that  it  cannot  be  done  if  the 
General  Government  continues  the  occupation 
of  the  forts  in  the  States  which  have  seceded. 
We,  therefore,  request  the  President  of  the 
United  States  to  withdraw  the  troops  of  the 
General  Government  from  those  forts. 

The  question  being  on  the  adoption  of  the 
second  resolution  of  the  report,  it  was  decided 


in  the  affirmative  by  the  following  vote,  the 
ayes  and  noes  being  called  for  by  Mr.  Bast. 

Ayes. — Messrs.  Allen,  Bartlett,  Bass,  Bast, 
Birch,  Bogy,  Breckinridge,  Broadhead,  Bridge, 
Brown,  Hush,  Calhoun,  Cayce,  Collier,  Comin- 
go,  Crawford,  Doniphan,  Donnell,  Douglass, 
Drake,  Dunn,  Eitzen,  Erayser,  Flood,  Eoster, 
Gamble,  Gannt,  Givens,  Gorin,  Gravely,  Hall 
of  Buchanan,  Hall  of  Randolph,  Hatcher, 
Hendrick,  Hitchcock,  Holmes,  Holt,  Hough, 
How,  Howell,  Hudgins,  Irwin,  Isbell,  Jackson, 
Jamison,  Johnson,  Kidd,  Leeper,  Linton,  Long, 
Marvin,  Marmaduke,  Matson,  Maupin,  Mc- 
Clurg,  McCormack,  McDowell,  McEerran, 
Meyer,  Morrow,  Moss,  Noell,  Norton,  Orr, 
Phillips,  Pomeroy,  Rankin,  Ray,  Redd,  Ritch- 
ey,  Rowland,  Sawyer,  Sayre,  Scott,  Shackelford 
of  Howard,  Shackelford  of  St.  Louis,  Sheeley, 
Smith  of  Linn,  Smith  of  St.  Louis,  Tindall, 
Turner,  Waller,  Watkins,  Welch,  Woodson, 
Woolfolk,  Wright,  Vanbuskirk,  Zimmerman 
and  Mr.  President — 90 

Noes — None. 

Absent — Messrs.  Chenault,  Harbin,  Hen- 
derson, Hill,  Ross,  Stewart  and  Wilson. 

Sick — Messrs.  Knott  and  Pipkin. 

Mr.  Bast  then  offered  the  following  : 

Amend  the  third  resolution  of  the  Report  of 
the  Committee  on  Federal  Relations  by  ad- 
ding: "And  in  the  event  of  a  refusal  by  the 
Northern  States  of  this  Union  to  agree  and 
consent  to  such  an  adjustment  or  settlement  of 
the  slavery  question,  and  our  sister  States, 
Virginia,  Maryland,  Kentucky,  Tennessee, 
North  Carolina  and  Arkansas,  determine  to 
change  the  relation  they  now  hold  to  the  Gen- 
eral Government,  the  State  of  Missouri  will 
not  hesitate  to  take  a  firm  and  decided  stand  in 
favor  of  her  sister  slave  States  of  the   South." 

Which  was  decided  in  the  negative  by  the 
following  vote,  the  ayes  and  noes  being  de- 
manded by  Mr.  Hatcher : 

Ayes — Messrs.  Bartlett,  Bast,  Brown,  Cayce, 
Chenault,  Collier,  Comingo,  Crawford,  Eray- 
ser, Hatcher,  Hill,  Hough,  Howell,  Hudgins, 
Matson,  Noell,  Redd,  Sawyer,  Sheeley  Waller, 
Watkins,  Zimmerman  and  Mr.  President — 23. 

Noes. — Messrs.  Allen,  Bass,  Birch,  Bogy, 
Breckinridge,  Broadhead,  Bridge,  Bush,  Cal- 
houn, Doniphan,  Donnell,  Douglass,  Drake, 
Dunn,  Eitzen,  Flood,  Eoster,  Gamble,  Gantt, 
Givens,  Gorin,  Gravely,  Hall  of  Buchanan, 
Hall  of  Randolph,  Henderson,  Hendrick,  Hitch- 
cock, Holmes,  Holt,  How,  Irwin,  Isbell,  Jack- 
son, Jamison,  Johnson,  Kidd,  Leeper,  Linton, 
Long,  Marmaduke,  Marvin,  Maupin,  McClurg, 
McCormack,  McDowell,  McEerran,  Meyer, 
Morrow,  Moss,  Norton,  Orr,  Phillips,  Pomeroy, 
Rankin,  Ray,  Ritchey,  Rowland,  Sayre,  Scott, 
Shackelford  of    Howard,    Shackelford   of  St. 


47 


Louis,  Smith  of  Linn,  Smith  of  St.  Louis,  Tin- 
dall,  Turner,  Welch,  Woodson,  Woolfolk, 
Wright,  and  Vanbuskirk — 70. 

Absext — Messrs.  Harbin,  Ross,  Stewart  and 
Wilson. 

Sick — Messrs.  Knott  and  Pipkin. 


Mr.  Hall,  of  Buchanan,  moved  the  pre- 
vious question  on  the  adoption  of  the  third  res- 
olution. 

Pending  which,  on  motion  of  Mr.  Breckin 
ridge,  the  Convention  adjourned. 


SEVENTEENTH    D_AY, 

WEDNESDAY  MORNING,   MARCH  20     1861. 


The  Convention  met  pursuant  to  adjourn- 
ment, and  was  opened  with  prayer  by  the  Rev. 
Mr.  Monroe. 

The  journal  of  the  proceedings  was  read 
and  approved. 

The  motion  of  Mr.  Hall,  of  Buchanan,  for 
the  previous  question  being  the  order,  the 
question  was  :  "  Shall  the  main  question  be 
now  put?"     It  was  decided  in  the  affirmative. 

The  question  being  on  the  adoption  of  the 
third  resolution,  it  was  adopted  by  the  follow- 
ing vote,  the  ayes  and  noes  having  been  called 
for  by  Mr   Hall,  of  Buchanan  : 

Ayes — Messrs.  Allen,  Bartlett,  Bass,  Bast, 
Birch,  Bogy,  Breckinridge.  Bridge,  Brown, 
Bush,  Calhoun,  Cayce,  Chonault,  Collier,  Craw- 
ford, Doniphan,  Donnell,  Douglass,  Drake, 
Dunn,  Eitzen,  Erayser,  Flood,  Foster,  Gamble, 
Gantt,  Givens,  Gorin,  Gravely,  Hall  of  Bu- 
chanan, Hall  of  Randolph,  Harbin,  Hatcher, 
Henderson,  Hendrick,  Holmes,  Holt,  Hough, 
Howell,  Hudgins,  Irwin,  Isbell,  Jackson,  Jam- 
ison, Kidd,  Knott,  Deeper,  Long,  Marmaduke, 
Marvin,  Matson,  Maupin,  McClurg,  McCor- 
mack,  McDowell,  McFerran,  Meyer,  Morrow, 
Moss,  Noell,  Norton,  Orr,  Phillips,  Pomeroy, 
Rankin,  Ray,  Redd,  Ritchey,  Ross,  Rowland, 
Sawyer,  Sayre,  Smith  of  Linn,  Smith  of  St. 
Louis,  Tindall,  Turner,  Waller,  Watkins, 
Welch,  Wilson,  Woodson,  Woolfolk,  Vanbus- 
kirk, Zimmerman  and  Mr.  President — 90. 

Noes — Messrs  Broadhead,  Hill  Hitchcock 
and  How — 4. 

Absent — Messrs.  Linton  and  Stewart. 

Sick — Messrs.  Comingo,  Johnson  and  Pip- 
kin. 

Mr.  Gamble  offered  the  following  as  a  sub- 
stitute for  the  fourth  resolution  : 

Resolved,  That  the  people  of  Missouri  be- 
lieve the  peace  and  quiet  of  the  country  will 
be  promoted  by  a  Convention,  to  propose 
amendments  to  the  Constitution  of  the  United 
States,  and  this  Convention  therefore  ur^cs 
the  Legislature  of  this  State,  and  of  the  other 
States,  to  take  the  proper  steps  for  calling  such 
a  Convention,  in  pursuance  of  the  fifth  article 
of  the  Constitution ;  and  for  providing  by  law 
for  an  election  by  the  people  of  such  number 


of  delegates  as  are  to  be  sent  to  such  Conven- 
tion. 

Mr.  Gamble  moved  the  previous  question ; 
the  question  being  :  "  Shall  the  main  ques- 
tion be  now  put  V  It  was  decided  in  the  af- 
firmative. 

The  question  then  being  on  the  adoption  of 
the  substitute  to  the  fourth  resolution,  it  was 
agreed  to. 

The  question  recurring  upon  the  adoption  of 
the  fourth  resolution  as  substituted,  it  was  de- 
cided in  the  affirmative  by  the  following  vote, 
the  ayes  and  noes  having  been  demanded  by 
Mr.  Hall,  of  Buchanan  : 

Ayes — Messrs.  Allen,  Bartlett,  Ba«t,  Bass, 
Birch,  Bogy,  Breckinridge,  Broadhead,  Bridge 
Bush;  Calhoun,  Cayce,  Collier,  Crawford,  Don 
nell,  Douglass,  Drake,  Dunn,  Eitzen,  Erayser 
Flood,  Foster,  Gamble,  Gantt,  Givens,  Gorin 
Gravely,  Hall  of  Buchanan,  Hall  of  Randolph 
Harbin,  Henderson,  Hendrick,  Hitchcock,  Holt 
Holmes,  How,  Howell,  Irwin,  Isbell,  Jackson 
Jamison,  Kidd,  Knott,  Deeper,  Long,  Marma 
duke,  Marvin,  Matson,  Maupin,  McClurg,  Me 
Cormack,  McDowell,  McFerran,  Meyer,  Mor 
row,  Moss,  Noell,  Norton,  Orr,  Phillips.  Pome 
roy,  Rankin,  Ray,  Ritchey,  Ross,  Rowland 
Sawyer,  Sayre,  Scott,  Shackelford  of  Howard 
Shackelford  of  St.  Louis,  Sheeley,  Smith  of 
Linn,  Smith  of  St.  Louis,  Tindall,  Turner 
Waller,  Welch,  Wilson,  Woodson,  Woolfolk 
Wright,  Vanbuskirk,  Zimmerman  and  Mr 
President — 85. 

Noes — Messrs.  Brown,  Chenault,  Doniphan, 
Hatcher,  Hill,  Hough,  Hudgins,  Redd  and 
Watkins — 9. 

Absent — Messrs.  Linton  and  Stewart. 

Sick — Messrs.  Comingo,  Johnson  and  Pip- 
kin. 

Mr.  Donnell  offered  the  following  as  an 
amendment  to  the  fifth  resolution  : 

Amend  fifth  resolution  by  adding  as  follows  : 
"In  view  of  the  existing  state  of  affairs,  in 
order  to  avoid  and  more  effectually  prevent  a 
conflict  with  the  seceding  States,  which  would 
forever  close  the  door  to  compromise,  we  be- 
lieve it  to  be  the  duty  of  the  Executive  to  with- 
draw all  government  troops  from  their  borders, 
and  abstain  from  the  collection  of  the  revenue, 


48 


thereby  depriving  them  of  any  plea  for  bring- 
ing on  a  hostile  engagement,  with  a  view  of 
engaging  the  sympathy  and  co-operation  of 
the  remaining  slave  States." 

Mr.  Hough  withdrew  the  resolution  offered 
by  him  on  yesterday,  which  was  laid  on  the 
table  and  ordered  to  be  printed. 

Mr.  Hall,  of  Buchanan,  offered  the  follow- 
ing as  a  substitute  for  the  amendment  of  Mr. 
Donnell : 

This  Convention  is  not  sufficiently  acquaint- 
ed with  all  the  facts  concerning  the  forts  of  the 
United  States  within  the  limits  of  the  seceding 
States,  as  to  be  able  to  give  an  opinion  with  re- 
ference to  the  best  course  to  be  pursued  by  the 
Federal  Government,  but  this  Convention  ear- 
nestly hopes  that  such  action  may  be  taken  by 
the  United  States  and  the  seceding  States  as 
will  avoid  all  hostile  collision  between  the  Uni- 
ted States  and  said  seceding  States. 

Mr.  Shackelford,  of  Howard,  offered  the 
following  as  an  amendment  to  the  pending  sub- 
stitute : 

That  it  is  the  opinion  of  this  Convention, 
that  our  cherished  desire  to  preserve  our  coun- 
try from  the  ruins  of  civil  war  and  its  devas- 
tating influence,  and  the  restoration  of  harmo- 
ny and  fraternal  feeling  between  the  different 
sections,  would  be  greatly  promoted  by  the 
withdrawal  of  the  Federal  troops  from  such 
forts  within  the  borders  of  the  seceding  States, 
when  there  is  danger  of  a  collision  between 
the  State  and  Federal  troops,  and  we  recom- 
mend that  policy. 

Mr.  Hall  called  for  the  previous  question, 
which  was  sustained,  the  question  being  : 
"  Shall  the  main  question  be  now  put?"  De- 
cided in  the  affirmative  by  the  following  vote, 
the  ayes  and  noes  having  been  called  for  by 
Mr.  Knott: 

Ayes — Messrs.  Allen,  Bartlett,  Bass,  Birch, 
Bogy,  Breckinridge,  Broadhead,  Bridge, 
Brown,  Bush,  Calhoun,  Cayce,  Chenault,  Co- 
mingo,  Doniphan,  Donnell,  Douglass,  Drake, 
Dunn,  Eitzen,  Frayser,  Flood,  Foster,  Gantt, 
Givens,  Gorin,  Hall  of  Buchanan,  Hall  of  Ran- 
dolph, Ilarbin,  Hatcher,  Henderson,  Hitchcock, 
Holmes,  Holt,  How,  Howell,  Irwin,  Isbell, 
Jackson,  Jamison,  Kidd,  Deeper,  Long,  Mar- 
maduke,  Marvin,  Matson,  Maupin,  McClurg, 
McCormack,  McDowell,  McFerran,  Meyer, 
Morrow,  Moss,  Noell,  Orr,  Phillips,  Rankin, 
Ray,  Ritchey,  Rowland,  Scott,  Shackelford  of 
Howard,  Shackelford  of  St.  Louis,  Smith  of 
Linn,  Smith  of  St.  Louis,  Tindall,  Waller, 
Watkins,  Wilson,  Woodson,  Woolfolk,  Van- 
buskirk,  Zimmerman  and  Mr.  President — 77. 

Noes — Messrs.  Crawford,  Gamble,  Gravely, 
Henderson,  Hill,  How,  Hudgins,  Knott,  Nor- 


ton, Pomeroy,  Redd,  Ross,  Sawyer,  Turner 
and  Welch— 15. 

Absent — Messrs.  Sayre,Stewart  and  Wright. 

Sick — Messrs.  Bast,  Johnson,  Linton  and 
Pipkin. 

The  question  being  on  the  adoption  of  the 
amendment  to  the  substitute,  it  was  agreed  to 
by  the  following  vote,  the  ayes  and  noes  hav- 
ing been  demanded  by  Mr.  Moss  : 

Ayes — Messrs.  Bartlett,  Bass,  Bogy,  Brown, 
Cayce,  Chenault,  Collier,  Comingo,  Crawford, 
Doniphan,  Donnell,  Douglass,  Drake,  Dunn, 
Frayser,  Flood,  Gamble,  Given?,  Gorin,  Grave- 
ly, Hall  of  Randolph,  Harbin,  Hatcher,  Hill, 
Hough,  Howell,  Hudgins,  Kidd,  Knotf,  Mar- 
maduke,  Matson,  McCormack,  McDowell, 
Morrow,  Moss,  Noell,  Norton,  Phillips,  Pome- 
roy, Rankin,  Ray,  Redd,  Ritchey,  Ross,  Saw- 
yer, Sayre,  Shackelford  of  Howard,  Sheeley, 
Waller,  Watkins,  Welch,  Wilson,  Woodson, 
Woolfolk,  Vanbuskirk,  Zimmerman  and  Mr. 
President — 57. 

Noes — Messrs.  Allen,  Birch,  Breckinridge, 
Broadhead,  Bridge,  Bush,  Calhoun,  Eitzen, 
Foster,  Gantt,  Hall  of  Buchanan,  Henderson, 
Hendrick;  Hitchcock,  Holmes,  Holt,  How,  Ir- 
win, Isbell,  Jackson,  Jamison,  Leeper,  Long, 
Marvin,  Maupin,  McClurg,  McFerran,  Meyer, 
Orr,  Rowland,  Scott,  Shackelford  of  St.  Louis, 
Smith  of  Linn,  Smith  of  St.  Louis,  Tindall 
and  Turner — 36. 

Absent — Messrs.  Linton,  Stewart  and 
Wright. 

Sick — Messrs.  Bast,  Johnson  and  Pipkin. 

The  question  then  being  on  the  adoption  of 
the  substitute  as  amended,  was  decided  in  the 
affirmative  by  the  following  vote,  the  ayes  and 
noes  being  demanded  by  Mr.  Moss  : 

Ayes — Messrs.  Allen,  Bogy,  Breckinridge, 
Broadhead,  Bridge,  Bush,  Calhoun,  Cayce, 
Douglass,  Eitzen,  Foster,  Gamble,  Gantt, 
Gravely,  Hall  of  Buchanan,  Hall  of  Randolph, 
Henderson,  Hendrick,  Hitchcock,  Holmes, 
Holt,  How,  Irwin,  Isbell,  Jackson,  Jamison, 
Kidd,  Leeper,  Long,  Marmaduke,  Marvin, 
Maupin,  McClurg,  McCormack,  McDowell, 
McFerran,  Meyer,  Morrow,  Noell,  Orr,  Phil- 
lips, Pomeroy,  Rankin,  Ross,  Rowland,  Scott, 
Shackelford  of  Howard,  Shackelford  of  St. 
Louis,  Smith  of  Linn,  Turner,  Wilson,  Van- 
buskirk, Zimmerman  and   Mr.    President — 54. 

Noes — Messrs.  Bartlett,  Bass,  Birch,  Brown, 
Chenault,  Collier,  Comingo,  Crawford,  Doni- 
phan, Donnell,  Drake,  Dunn,  Frayser,  Flood, 
Givens,  Gorin,  Harbin,  Hatcher,  Hill,  Hough, 
Howell,  Hudgin?,  Knott,  Matson,  Moss,  Nor- 
ton, Ray,  Redd,  Ritchey,  Sawyer,  Sayre,  Shee- 
ley, Smith  of  St.  Louis,  Tindall,  Waller,  Wat- 
kins, Welch,  Woodson  and  Woolfolk — 39. 

Absent — Messrs.  Linton,  Stewart  and 
Wright. 

Sick — Messrs.  Bast,  Johnson  and  Pipkin. 

Mr.  Henderson  moved  that  the  Convention 
adjourn  until  10  o'clock  to-morrow  morning, 
which  motion  was  decided  in  the  negative. 

The  question  then  being  on  the  adoption  of 
the   amended   substitute  as  an  amendment  to 


49 


the  original  (fifth)  resolution,  it  was  decided 
in  the  affirmative  by  the  following  vote,  the 
ayes  and  noes  having  been  called  for  by  Mr. 
Redd: 

Ayes— Messrs.  Bartlett,  Bass,  Bogy,  Brown, 
Cayce,  Chenault,  Collier,  Comingo,  Crawford, 
Doniphan,  Donnell,  Douglass,  Drake,  Dunn, 
Flood,  Givens,  Gorin,  Gravely,  Harbin,  Hatch- 
er, Hill,  Hough,  Howell,  Hudgins,  Knott,  Kidd, 
Marmaduke,  Matson,  McDowell,  Morrow, 
Moss,  Noell,  Norton,  Phillips,  Rankin,  Ray, 
Redd,  Ritchey,  Ross,  Sawyer,  Sayre,  Scott, 
Shackelford  of  Howard,  Sheeley,  VVatkins, 
Welch,  Wilson,  Woodson,  Woolfolk,  Vanbus- 
kirk  and  Mr.  President— 51. 

Noes— Messrs.  Allen,  Birch,  Breckinridge, 
Broadhead,  Bridge,  Bush,  Calhoun,  Eitzen, 
Frayser,  Foster,  Gamble,  Gantt,  Hall  of  Bu- 
chanan, Hall  of  Randolph,  Henderson,  Hen- 
drick,  Hitchcock,  Holmes,  Holt,  How,  Irwin, 
Isbell,  Jackson,  Jamison,  Johnson,  Leeper, 
Long  Marvin,  Maupin,  McClurg,  McCormack, 
McFerran,  Meyer,  Orr,  Pomeroy,  Rowland, 
Shackelford  of  St.  Louis,  Smith  of  Linn,  Smith 
of  St.  Louis,  Tindall,  Turner,  Waller,  Wrighl 
and  Zimmerman — 44. 

Absent — Messrs.  Linton  and  Stewart. 

Sick — Messrs.  Bast  and  Pipkin. 

The  question  then  recurring  upon  the  adop- 
tion of  the  original  fifth  resolution,  as  amend- 
ed, it  was  decided  in  the  affirmative  by  the  fol- 
lowing vote,  the  ayes  and  noes  having  been  de- 
manded by  Mr.  Hough  : 

Ayes — Messrs.  Allen,  Bartlett,  Bass,  Bast, 
Birch,  Bogy,  Breckinridge,  Brown,  Calhoun, 
Cayce,  Chenault,  Collier,  Comingo,  Crawford, 
Doniphan,  Donnell,  Douglass,  Drake,  Dunn, 
Frayser,  Flood,  Foster,  Gamble,  Gantt,  Giv- 
ens, Gorin,  Gravely,  Hall  of  Buchanan,  Hall 
of  Randolph,  Hirbin,  Hatcher,  Henderson, 
Hendrick,  Hill,  Holmes,  Holt,  How,  Howell, 
Hudgins,  Irwin,  Isbell,  Jackson,  Johnson, 
Jamison,  Kidd,  Knott,  Leeper,  Long,  Marma- 
duke, Marvin,  Matson,  Maupin,  McClurg,  Mc- 
Cormack, McDowell,  McFerran,  Meyer,  Mor- 
row, Moss,  Noell,  Norton,  Orr,  Phillips,  Ran- 
kin, Ray,  Redd,  Ritchey,  Ross,  Rowland,  Saw- 
yer, Sayre,  Scott,  Shackelford  of  Howard, 
Shackelford  of  St.  Louis,  Sheeley,  Smith  of 
Linn,  Smith  of  St.  Louis,  Tindall,  Turner, 
Waller,  Watkins,  Welch,  Wilson,  Woodson, 
Woolfolk,  Wright,  Vanbuskirk,  Zimmerman 
and  Mr.  President — 89. 

Noes — Messrs.  Broadhead,  Bridge,  Bush, 
Eitzen,  Hitchcock  and  How — 6, 

Absent — Messrs.  Linton  and  Stewart. 

SrcK — Messrs.  Bast  and  Pipkin. 

The  Convention  having  proceeded  to  the 
consideration  of  the  sixth  resolution  of  the  Re- 
port of  the  Committee  on  Federal  Relations, 

Mr.  Hall,  of  Buchanan,  called  for  the  pre- 
vious question,  which  was  sustained.  The 
question  being  :  "  Shall  the  main  question  be 
now  put?"  which  was  decided  in  the  affirma- 
tive. 

4a 


The  question  being  on  the  adoption  of  the 
sixth  resolution,  it  was  decided  in  the  affirma- 
tive by  the  following  vote,  the  ayes  and  noes 
having  been  called  for  by  Mr.  Redd  : 

Ayes — Messrs.  Allen,  Bartlett,  Bass,  Birch, 
Bogy,  Breckinridge,  Broadhead,  Bridge,  Bush, 
Brown,  Calhoun,  Cayce,  Collier,  Douglass, 
Drake,  Dunn,  Eitzen.  Frayser,  Flood,  Foster, 
Gamble,  Gantt,  Hall  of  Buchanan,  Hall  of 
Randolph, Hatcher,  Henderson,  Hendrick,  Hill, 
Hitchcock,  Holmes,  Holt,  Hough,  How,  Irwin, 
Isbell,  Jackson,  Jamison,  Johnson,  Kidd, 
Leeper,  Long,  Marmaduke,  Marvin,  Maupin, 
McClurg,  McCormack,  McFerran,  Meyer,  Mor- 
row, Moss,  Noell,  Orr,  Phillips,  Pomeroy,  Ran- 
kin, Ray,  Ross,  Rowland,  Scott,  Shackelford 
of  Howard,  Shackelford  of  >t.  Louis,  Sheeley, 
Smith  of  Linn,  Smith  of  St.  Louis,  Tindall, 
Turner,  Waller,  Watkins,  Welch,  Wilson, Wood- 
son, Woolfolk,  Wright,  Vanbuskirk,  Zimmer- 
man and  Mr.  President — 76. 

Noes — Messrs.  Chenault,  Comingo,  Craw- 
ford, Doniphan,  Donnell,  Givens,  Gorin,  Grave- 
ly, Harbin,  Howell,  Hudgins,  Knott,  Matson, 
McDowell,  Norton,  Redd,  Ritchey,  Sawyer 
and  Sayre — 19. 

Absent — Messrs.  Linton  and  Stewart, 

Sick — Messrs.  Bast  and  Pipkin. 

Mr.  Phillips  moved  that  the  Convention 
adjourn  until  to-morrow  morning  at  ten  o'clock, 
which  was  decided  in  the  negative. 

The  Convention  proceeded  to  the  considera- 
tion of  the  seventh  resolution  of  the  report, 
when 

Mr.  Dunn  offered  the  following  amendment: 

Amend  the  seventh  resolution  by  filling  the 
blank  with  '"seven,"  and  by  adding  after  the 
word  "seven,"  "one  from  each  Congressional 
district,"  which  was  agreed  to. 

Mr.  Hall,  of  Buchanan,  offered  the  follow- 
ing as  an  additional  amendment,  which  was 
also  agreed  to  : 

Strike  out  all  after  the  word  "and,"  and  in- 
sert "in  case  any  vacancy  or  vacancies  shall 
happen  in  said  committee  during  the  recess  of 
this  Convention,  by  death,  resignation,  or  oth- 
erwise, the  remaining  members  or  member  of 
said  Committee  shall  have  power  to  fill  the 
same." 

Mr.  Leeper  moved  the  Convention  now  ad- 
journ, which  motion  was  decided  in  the  nega- 
tive. 

Mr.  Redd  offered  the  following  amendment 
to  the  pending  resolution,  which,  on  motion, 
was  rejected  : 

Amend  the  seventh  resolution  by  striking 
out  the  words  "at  such  place  as  they  may  think 
the  public  exigencies  require,"  and  insert  the 
words  "at  the  city  of  Jefferson"  in  the  place 
thereof. 


50 


Mr.  Birch  offered  the  following  amend- 
ment : 

Amend  the  seventh  resolution  by  adding 
these  words  :  "And  if  the  said  committee  shall 
be  of  opinion  hereafter,  that  there  is  no  longer 
a  necessity  for  the  re-assembling  of  this  Con- 
vention, and  shall  so  declare  by  public  commu- 
nication, then  and  in  that  case  the  Convention 
shall  not  re-assemble  on  the  third  Monday  in 
in  December,  1861,  but  may  be  called  together 
by  a  majority  of  said  committee  at  any  subse- 
quent period." 

Mr.  Knott  called  for  the  ayes  and  noes  on 
agreeing  to  the  amendment  of  Mr.  Birch. 

Mr.  Wilson  offered  the  following  substitute, 
which  was  accepted  by  Mr.  Birch  : 


That  by  request  of  a  majority  of  all  the  mem- 
bers of  this  Convention,  in  writing,  delivered 
to  said  committee  prior  to  said  third  Monday 
in  December  next,  the  said  Committee  shall  on 
that  day  adjourn  this  Convention  sine  die. 

Mr.  Shackelford,  of  Howard,  offered  the 
following  amendment  to  the  accepted  substitute 
of  Mr.  Wilson  : 

Provided,  that  if  the  Convention  does  not  as- 
semble on  the  third  Monday  in  December,  1861, 
the  Convention  shall  stand  adjourned  sine  die. 

Pending  which,  on  motion  of  Mr.  Sheeley, 
the  Convention  adjourned  until  to-morrow 
morning  at  ten  o'clock. 


EIGHTEENTH    DAY, 

THURSDAY,  MARCH  21,  1861. 


The  Convention  met  pursuant  to  adjourn- 
ment, and  was  opened  with  prayer  by  the  Rev. 
Mr.  Monroe. 

The  Journal  of  the  proceedings  of  yester- 
day was  read  and  approved. 

Mr.  Henderson,  from  the  Committee  here- 
tofore appointed,  to  whom  was  referred  the 
communication  from  the  Hon.  Luther  J.  Glenn, 
Commissioner  from  the  State  of  Georgia  to 
this  Convention,  made  a  report  which  was  read. 

Majority  Report  of  Committee  on  Commissioner 
from   Georgia. 

Mr.  President  :  Your  Committee,  to  whom 
was  referred  the  communication  of  the  Hon.  Lu- 
ther J.  Glenn,  who  appeared  before  the  Conven- 
tion as  a  Commissioner  from  Georgia,  and  hav- 
ing presented  the  ordinance  of  secession  adopted 
by  said  State,  was  pleased  to  "invite  the  co-ope- 
ration of  Missouri  with  Georgia  and  the  other 
seceding  States  in  the  formation  of  a  Southern 
Confederacy,"  have  had  the  same  under  consid- 
eration, and  beg  leave  to  report  as  follows : 

The  Committee  sincerely  regret  that  the  com- 
mission under  which  Mr.  Glenn  was  accredited 
to  our  State,  was  limited  in  its  scope  to  a  mere 
invitation  to  withdraw  from  the  Government  of 
our  fathers,  and  form  a  distinct  confederacy  with 
the  Gulf  States.  His  mission  seems  to  contem- 
plate no  plan  of  reconciliation — no  measure  of 
redress  for  alleged  grievances,  which  being  adopt- 
ed would  prove  satisfactory  to  Georgia.  Having 
chosen  secession  as  the  only  remedy  for  existing 
ills,  Georgia,  through  her  Commissioner,  sup- 
poses that  similar  interests,  connected  with  the 


exigency  precipitated  upon  us  by  the  action  of 
the  Cotton  States,  will  impel  Missouri  to  with- 
draw from  the  Union  and  cast  her  lot  with  them . 

The  reasons  assigned  by  Mr.  Glenn  for  this  ac- 
tion on  the  part  of  his  State  are :  First,  that  the 
laws  of  Congress  imposing  duties  on  imports 
have  been  so  framed  as  to  discriminate  very  in- 
juriously against  Southern  interests;  Second, 
that  a  great  sectional  party,  chiefly  confined  to 
the  Northern  States  of  the  Union,  whose  leading 
idea  is  animosity  to  the  institution  of  negro 
slavery,  has  gradually  become  so  strong  as  to 
obtain  the  chief  executive  power  of  the  nation, 
which  is  regarded  as  a  present  insult  to  the. 
South;  and,  Third,  that  the  ultimate  object  of 
this  party  is  the  total  extinction  of  slavery  in 
the  States  where  it  now  exists  by  law,  and  the 
placing  upon  terms  of  political  equality,  at 
least,  the  white  and  black  races;  and  to  prevent 
evils  of  such  magnitude,  as  well  as  to  preserve 
the  honor  and  safety  of  the  South,  Georgia  and 
some  of  her  sister  States  have  deliberately  re- 
solved to  withdraw  from  the  Union,  never  to  re- 
turn. 

Your  Committee  trust  that  they  duly  appreci- 
ate the  gravity  of  the  communication  thus  made 
to  the  people  of  Missouri. 

Missouri  entered  the  Union  at  the  close  of  an 
angry  contest  on  the  subject  of  slavery.  Her 
geographical  position,  the  variety  of  the  branch- 
es of  industry  to  which  her  resources  point,  her 
past  growth  and  future  prospects,  combine  to  de- 
mand that  all  her  councils  be  taken  in  the  spirit 
of  sobriety  and  conciliation. 

Your  Committee  waive  for  the  moment  the 
consideration  of  the  moral  aspect  of  what  they 


51 


conceive  to  be  the  heresy  of  secession,  because 
if  they  entered,  in  the  first  instance,  upon  this 
examination,  its  results  would  preclude  any  in- 
quiry into  the  material  consequences  of  the  ac- 
tion to  which  Missouri  is  solicited. 

The  peculiar  position  of  our  State  is  different 
from  that  of  Georgia  or  any  other  of  the  cotton- 
growing  States.  If  it  be  true,  as  represented, 
that  the  revenue  laws  of  the  country  operate 
oppressively  upon  them— and  this  objection  is 
now  heard  for  the  first  time  after  an  interval  of 
nearly  thirty  years— it  can  not  be  pretended  that 
any  part  of  this  particular  grievance  touches 
Missouri. 

Acknowledging  as  we  do  the  power  of  Con- 
gress to  impose  such  duties  for  revenue  purposes 
at  least,  and  trusting  to  the  wisdom  and  justice 
of  that  body  for  impartial  legislation,  we  are  un- 
willing to  seek,  in  a  step  promising  nothing  but 
the  most  unequivocal  calamities,  a  refuge  from 
imaginary  evils. 

In  reference  to  the  more  important  matter  pre- 
sented as  a  reason  for  the  action  of  Georgia,  your 
Committee  would  say,  that  Missouri  has  watched 
with  painful  anxiety  the  progress  of  a  great  sec- 
tional party  in  the  North  based  upon  the  exclu- 
sion of  slavery  from  the  Territories,  which  are 
the  common  property  of  the  whole  Union.  Do- 
ing the  Republican  party  the  justice  to  believe 
that  it  means  to  carry  out  the  articles  of  its  polit- 
ical creed,  as  stated  in  its  platform  and  indicated 
by  its  recent  votes  in  Congress,  we  deem  it  incor- 
rect to  declare  that  it  cherishes  any  present  inten- 
tion to  interfere  with  slavery  in  the  States  of  the 
Union.  Any  such  attempt  would  justly  arouse 
the  highest  exasperation  in  every  slaveholding 
State;  but  it  is  considered  unwise  to  go  out  of  our 
way  to  denounce  hypothetically  a  design  which, 
so  far  from  being  threatened,  is  disavowed  by 
that  party. 

We  are  awave  that  individual  members  of  the 
Republican  party  have  at  times  enunciated  most 
dangerous  heresies,  and  that  some  of  its  ex- 
tremists ha\e,  with  apparent  deliberation,  em- 
bodied in  the  form  of  resolutions  and  published 
to  the  world,  sentiments  which  would  fully 
authorize,  if  regarded  as  the  views  of  the  whole 
organization,  the  condemation  due  to  principles 
at  war  with  the  security  of  rights  of  property  in 
nearly  half  the  States  of  the  Union;  but  we 
must  guard  ourselves  against  the  double  error  of 
imagining  that  all  the  bad  rhetoric  and  uncharit- 
able speech  of  orators  whose  highest  aim  is  to 
produce  a  sensation,  are  to  be  taken  as  the  true 
exponent  of  the  sober  views  of  their  party,  and 
that  language  recklessly  used  by  a  party  seeking 
to  obtain  power  is  a  faithful  index  of  the  con- 
duct it  will  pursue  when  power  has  been  once 
obtained. 

In  support  of  these  views,  your  Committee  may 
instance  the  adoption  of  a  constitutional  amend- 


ment by  the  requisite  two-thirds  vote  of  each 
branch  of  the  last  Congress,  after  the  representa- 
tives from  seven  Southern  States  had  withdrawn, 
providing  against  all  interference  by  Congress 
with  the  institution  of  slavery,  as  it  may  exist  in 
any  State  of  the  Union— a  provision  irrevocable 
without  the  consent  of  every  State.  From  this  it 
may  be  seen  that  the  extremists  attached  to  the 
Republican  party  have  so  far  been  unable  to  con- 
trol it. 

In  proof  of  the  proposition  that  parties  are  more 
radical  in  the  acquisition  that  in  the  exercise  of 
power,  we  may  refer  to  the  recent  organization  of 
three  several  Territorial  Governments,  upon  the 
principles  contained  in  the  compromise  measures 
of  1850 — and  afterwards  applied,  upon  demand 
of  the  South,  to  the  provisional  governments  of 
Kansas  and  Nebraska. 

But  notwithstanding  these  evidences  denoting 
thus  far  a  proper  appreciation  of  the  rights  and 
wishes  of  the  people  of  the  South,  the  Honora- 
ble Commissioner  was  pleased  to  assure  us  that 
Georgia  had  lost  all  confidence  in  the  North. 
Such,  Mr.  President,  is  not  the  sentiment  of 
Missouri.  That  many  of  the  citizens  of  the  North, 
including  the  turbulent  demagogues  who  incite 
to  treason,  and  their  deluded  followers  who  exe- 
cute their  teachings,  by  invading  other  States, 
with  a  view  of  inaugurating  revolution  or  setting 
at  defiance  by  forcible  resistance  the  Federal  laws 
on  their  own  soil,  have  forfeited  our  confidence, 
will  not  be  denied.  But  to  denounce  the  innocent 
with  the  guilty,  and  charge  whole  communities 
with  the  crimes  or  bad  faith  of  a  few,  does  not 
accord  with  the  moral  or  political  ethics  of  Mis- 
sourians. 

It  is  true  that  some  of  the  Northern  States  have 
enacted  laws,  the  provisions  of  which  seem  de- 
signed to  impede  the  prompt  and  faithful  execu- 
tion of  the  fugitive  slave  law,  but  such  enact- 
ments are  void.  They  disgrace  the  statute  books 
on  which  they  appear,  and  serve  no  other  pur- 
pose than  to  weaken  the  fraternal  ties  that  should 
bind  together  the  people  of  different  sections  of 
the  Union.  These  enactments  are  fast  disap- 
pearing; and  the  hope  may  be  indulged  that,  in 
the  course  of  a  few  months,  this  source  of  irrita- 
tion will  be  permanently  removed. 

So  far,  then,  from  having  lost  all  confidence  in 
the  North,  Missouri  is  assured,  by  the  history  of 
the  past,  that  every  right  she  may  constitutional- 
ly claim  will  be  accorded  to  her.  Let  the  pas- 
sions of  the  day,  engendered  by  political  conflict, 
subside,  and  the  ultra  dogmas  of  party  leaders 
will  be  discarded.  Let  the  American  mind  once 
more  be  directed  to  the  importance  of  perpetuat- 
ing the  blessings  of  a  good  government,  instead 
of  indulging  vain  hopes  of  establishing  a  better 
one,  at  the  close  of  the  most  dangerous  and  crim- 
inal revolutions,  and  then  the  peace  of  the  coun- 
try will  have  been  restored. 


52 


We  are  not  advised  that  concessions  demanded 
by  the  Southern  people,  on  the  subject  of  slavery, 
have  been  heretofore  refused  by  those  of  the 
North.  No  Federal  legislation,  discriminating 
against  the  institution,  has  ever  been  imposed 
upon  the  South  by  the  sectional  power  of  the 
North.  The  ordinance  of  1787,  prohibiting 
slavery  in  the  Northwest  territory,  ceded  to  the 
General  Government  by  the  State  of  Virginia, 
was  proposed  and  advocated  by  one  of  the  most 
distinguished  sons  of  the  "  Old  Dominion." 
The  proposition  was  seconded  and  supported  by 
Southern  men,  and,  though  the  result  of  the 
measure  was  the  exclusion  of  slavery  from  the 
soil  of  five  large  States  ef  the  Union,  yet  the 
South  should  not  be  so  unjust  as  now  to  com- 
plain of  the  deed. 

The  Missouri  Compromise  was  agreed  upon  by 
the  representatives  of  both  sections  of  the  coun- 
try, and  neither  should  now  reproach  the  other. 
It  was  proposed  by  a  Southern  man,  received  the 
assent  of  the  South,  and  acquiesced  in  by  the 
people  of  the  nation. 

And  though,  it  may  be  said,  the  compact  was 
made  in  ignorance  of  the  law,  as  recently  de- 
clared by  the  Supreme  Court,  the  people  of  the 
South  will  scarcely  now  sacrifice  their  high  sense 
of  honor,  so  long  claimed  as  a  leading  character- 
istic, in  eager  and  unnatural  desire  to  find  causes 
of  quarrel  with  their  brethren  of  the  North. 

At  a  subsequent  period  the  South  demanded  a 
repeal  of  the  Missouri  compromise  line,  and  the 
adoption  of  the  principle  of  non-intervention  upon 
the  subject  of  slavery  in  the  Territories.  The  de- 
mand was  acceded  to,  and  territorial  government 
established  in  accordance  with  their  wishes.  That 
portion  of  the  Territory,  once  covered  by  the  re- 
striction of  1820,  was  thus  opened  to  the  intro- 
duction of  slavery,  and  now,  for  the  first  time 
since  the  organization  of  the  Federal  Government, 
has  slavery  become  lawful  upon  every  part  of  the 
public  domain.  Georgia  and  Missouri  united  in 
this  appeal  to  the  patriotism  and  justice  of  the 
North.  The  concession  was  made,  and  Missouri 
would  be  false  to  every  principle  of  honor  should 
she  find  in  the  act  a  pretext  for  the  charge  of  bro- 
ken faith. 

The  operation  of  this  principle  having  become 
distasteful  to  some  of  our  Southern  friends,  it  was 
thought  by  them  advisable  to  make  yet  another 
demand  upon  the  people  of  the  North.  The  doc- 
trine of  Congressional  protection  of  slavery  in 
the  Territory  was  urged  as  a  substitute  for  that 
of  popular  sovereignty,  so  recently  adopted  at 
their  own  instance  and  request.  The  demand, 
however,  is  only  made  in  a  political  convention, 
and  admitted,  by  the  parties  urging  it,  to  be  an 
unnecessary  and  impracticable  abstraction. 
When  attempted  to  be  engrafted  upon  the  legis- 
lation of  the  country,  it  is  repudiated  by  nearly 
the  entire  South,  and  even  by  Georgia  herself. 


Your  Committee  are  by  no  means  satisfied  that 
even  this  request  would  be  refused  by  a  large 
proportion  of  the  Northern  people,  were  it  neces- 
sary to  preserve  the  Union,  or  secure  the  rights  of 
their  brethren.  But,  until  it  shall  be  acknowledged 
as  a  vital  and  living  principle  by  the  South,  and 
refused  by  the  North,  Missouri  will  be  slow  even 
to  complain  of  injustice,  much  less  to  enter  into 
any  schemes  for  the  destruction  of  the  Govern- 
ment. 

Missouri  is  not  yet  ready  to  abandon  the  ex- 
periment of  free  government.  She  has  not  lost 
all  confidence  in  the  people  of  any  section  of  the 
nation,  because  the  past  furnishes  assurance  to 
the  contrary;  the  present  is  cheered  by  her  un- 
shaken faith  in  the  capacity  of  man  to  govern 
himself-— and  the  future  invites  to  peace  and  con- 
tinued Union,  for  the  prosperity  of  all. 

If  evils  exist  under  the  Constitution  and  laws, 
as  they  are,  let  the  proper  appeal  be  addressed  to 
the  American  heart,  both  North  and  South,  and 
these  evils  will  be  removed.  If,  in  the  heat  of 
partisan  rancor,  the  expressions  or  deeds  of  the 
vicious  shall  point  to  future  aggressions,  the 
patriotism  of  the  masses  needs  only  to  be  invoked 
for  new  guaranties  against  anticipated  wrong. 

From  what  has  been  already  said  it  will  be  seen 
that  the  views  of  Georgia,  as  expressed  by  her 
Commissioner,  and  those  of  your  Committee,  in 
reference  to  the  policy  to  be  pursued  by  the 
Southern  States  in  the  present  emergency,  are 
essentially  different.  We  believe  that  Missouri 
yet  relies  upon  the  justice  of  the  American  people, 
whilst  Georgia  seems  to  despair.  The  one  re- 
cognizes friends  in  the  North,  whose  lives,  if  ne- 
cessary, will  be  devoted  to  her  defense;  the  other 
regarding  them  as  unworthy  of  her  confidence, 
spurns  their  friendship  and  defies  their  enmity. 
Missouri  looks  to  the  Federal  Constitution  to  pro- 
tect the  rights  of  her  citizens,  whilst  Georgia  un- 
necessarily rushes  into  revolution  and  hazards  all 
upon  a  single  issue.  Georgia,  seeming  to  regard 
the  Union  as  the  source  of  imaginary  ills,  adopts 
secession  as  a  remedy;  Missouri,  feeling  that  she 
is  indebted  to  the  Union  for  the  prosperity  of  her 
citizens,  her  power  and  wealth  as  a  State,  yet 
clings  to  it  with  the  patriotic  devotion  of  earlier 
days. 

Your  committee,  so  far,  have  confined  them- 
selves to  an  examination  of  the  causes  alleged  for 
the  revolution  in  the  Southern  States,  and  the  ap- 
parent want  of  necessity  for  so  extraordinary  a 
movement,  at  the  present  time.  Indeed  so  rapid 
and  ill-advised  has  this  action  been,  that  it  seems 
rather  the  execution  of  meditated  conspiracy 
against  the  Government  by  restless  and  uneasy 
demagogues,  than  the  slow  and  determined 
movement  of  a  reflecting  people.  We  see  many 
of  the  dangerous  men  who  controlled  the  nulli- 
fication plot  of  South  Carolina  in  1832,  the  promi- 
nent actors  in  the  present  desperate  experiment 


53 


against  the  peace  and  happiness  of  the  country. 
Feeling,  as  we  do,  the  total  inadequacy  of  the 
causes  presented  for  this  ruinous  policy,  your 
Committee  will  be  excused  in  the  expression  of 
some  doubt  as  to  the  deliberation  and  wisdom 
with  which  the  Honorable  Commissioner  was 
pleased  to  assure  us  Georgia  had  acted  in  the 
premises.  And  in  this  connection  we  will  be  fur- 
ther excused  for  commending  to  the  serious  con- 
sideration of  the  good  citizens  of  Georgia,  and 
other  seceding  States,  who  may  for  the  moment 
have  been  seduced  from  the  paths  of  safety  by  the 
artful  schemes  of  bad  men,  the  following  memo- 
rable words  from  one  whose  patriotism  will  not 
be  doubted,  and  whose  unerring  sagacity  is  being 
daily  verified  in  the  history  of  the  Republic : 

"  Washington,  May  1, 1833. 
"  Mt  Dear  Sir  :  *  *  *  *  I  have  had  a 
laborious  task  here;  but  nullification  is  dead,  and 
its  actors  and  courtiers  will  only  be  remembered 
by  the  people  to  be  execrated  for  their  wicked  de- 
signs to  sever  and  destroy  the  only  good  Govern- 
ment on  the  globe,  and  that  prosperity  and  hap- 
piness we  enjoy  over  every  portion  of  the  world. 
Hainan's  gallows  ought  to  be  the  fate  of  all  such 
ambitious  men,  who  would  involve  their  country 
in  civil  war,  and  all  the  evils  in  its  train,  that  they 
might  reign  and  ride  on  its  whirlwind  and  direct 
the  storm.  The  free  people  of  these  United  States 
have  spoken,  and  consigned  these  wicked  dema- 
gogues to  their  proper  doom.  Take  care  of  your 
nullifiers;  you  have  them  among  you;  let  them 
meet  with  the  indignant  frowns  of  every  man  who 
loves  his  country.  The  tariff,  it  is  now  known 
was  a  mere  pretext.  The  next  pretext  w 'ill  be  the 
negro  or  slavery  question. 

"ANDREW  JACKSON. 

"Rev.  Andrew  J.  Crawford." 

The  Commissioner  was  pleased  to  invoke  the 
identity  of  interests  and  feeling  between  the  peo- 
ple of  Georgia  and  Missouri,  as  a  reason  that  we 
should  abandon  the  Government  of  our  fathers 
and  take  our  position  with  the  seceding  States. 
It  will  be  borne  in  mind  that  this  proposition  was 
urged,  not  with  a  view  of  securing  such  guaran- 
ties as  might  ultimately  lead  to  a  reunion  of  the 
States  and  the  establishment  of  fraternal  peace, 
but  for  the  purpose  of  constructing  permanently 
a  separate  and  distinct  confederacy. 

If  the  union  of  these  two  great  States,  under 
the  same  government— and  we  admit  the  fact- 
be  so  desirable  to  Georgia,  we  will  be  pardoned 
in  the  expression  of  astonishment  that  she  saw  fit 
to  dissolve  that  connection,  which  had  been  peace- 
ful and  happy  for  the  last  forty  years,  without 
consulting  the  interests  or  wishes  of  Missouri.  It 
may  not  be  intended,  but  the  inference  is  forced 
upon  us,  that  longer  to  enjoy  the  beneficial  re- 
sults to  flow  from  union  with  our  revolting  sisters, 
we  must  surrender  our  own  convictions  of  duty 


and  follow  the  imperative  behests  of  others.— 
Missouri  must  resign  her  place  in  the  present  gal- 
axy of  States,  where  the  lustre  and  brilliancy  of 
each  but  add  harmony  and  beauty  to  the  whole, 
and  accept  such  position  as  may  be  assigned  her 
in  the  new  constellation,  whose  light,  we  fear, 
may  never  penetrate  beyond  the  southern  skies. 
The  importance  of  the  accession  of  Missouri 
to  any  confederacy  formed  upon  the  ruins  of  the 
present  Union  will  be  readily  granted;  but  before 
accepting  any  such  invitation  without  any  guar- 
anty for  the  future,  it  behooves  us  now  to  exam- 
ine the  character  of  the  remedy  proposed,  and 
also  its  inevitable  consequences  upon  the  people 
of  Missouri.     Should  the   Government  become 
destructive  of  the  ends   for  which  it  was  insti- 
tuted, and  oppression  become  the  established 
rule  of  its  action,  we  presume  that  none  will  de- 
ny the    revolutionary  right  of  redress.     This, 
however,  is  a  remedy  outside  of  the  provisions  of 
the  federal  constitution  and  one  that  must  neces- 
sarily address  itself  to  the  moral  sense  of  the  civ- 
ilized wrorld.    It  depends  for  its   success  upon 
deep  convictions  of  wrong  by  citizens  of  the  re- 
volting district,   claiming,  when  justifiable,  the 
encouragement  and  sympathy  of  other  nations. 
It  is  the  last  remedy  of  injured  man  to  obtain  in 
violence  and  bloodshed,  if  need  be,  the  establish- 
ment of  an  incontestible  right.    It  presumes  the 
total  inefficiency  of  his  government  to  redress  his 
wrongs.    It  supposes  that  all  the  efforts  of  peace 
have  been  exhausted,  and  that  present  evils  are 
beyond  endurance. 

If  it  be  true  "that  governments  long  established 
should  not  be  changed  for  light  and  transient 
causes/'  it  occurs  to  your  Committee  that  a  proper 
appreciation  of  this  truth  will  at  once  dispel  all 
ideas  of  present  revolution. 

Secession,  on  the  other  hand,  is  claimed  as  a 
right  resulting  from  the  nature  of  our  Govern- 
ment; that  the  Constitution  is  a  mere  compact 
between  the  States,  not  subject  even  to  the  ordi- 
nary rules  governing  contracts;  that  it  is  a  con- 
federation of  States,  not  a  government  of  the  peo- 
ple. 

It  will  be  observed  that  no  attempt  of  a  serious 
character  has  ever  been  made  to  overthrow  the 
Government  without  adopting  this  theory  as  the 
best  means  to  accomplish  the  end.  The  reason  is 
obvious;  for  although  it  is  declared  in  the  instru- 
ment itself,  that  "this  Constitution  and  the  laws  of 
the  United  States  which  shall  b3  made  in  pursu- 
ance thereof,  and  all  treaties  made  under  the  an" 
thority  of  the  United  States,  shall  be  the  supreme 
law  of  the  land;  and  the  judges  in  every  State 
shall  be  bound  thereby,  anything  in  the  constitu- 
tion or  laws  of  any  State  to  the  contrary  notwith- 
standing," this  doctrine  interposes  State  author- 
ity between  the  rebellious  citizen  and  the  conse- 
quences of  his  crime.    Hence  the  delegates  from 


54 


the  five  New  England   States  who  met  at  Hart- 
ford, Connecticut,  in  1814,  in  response  to  the  call 
of   the    Massachusetts  Legislature,    saying   "it 
was    expedient    to    lay    the    foundation   for   a 
radical  reform  in    the    National  compact,  and 
devise    some    mode    of     defense     suitable    to 
those  States,  the  affinities  of  whose  interests  are 
closest  and  whose  intercourse  are  most  frequent," 
after  enumerating  their  grievances  against  the 
Government,  declare  that  "in  cases  of  deliberate, 
dangerous  and  palpable  infractions  of  the  Con- 
stitution,  affecting  the  sovereignty  of  a  State,   j 
and  the  liberties  of  the  people,  it  is  not  only  the  \ 
right  but  the  duty  of  such  a  State  to  interpose  its  j 
authority  for  protection,  in  the  manner  best  cal-  j 
ciliated  to  secure  that  end.    When  emergencies  ! 
occur  which  arc  either  beyond  the  reach  of  the  | 
judicial  tribunals,  or  too  pressing  to  admit  of  the 
delay  incident  to  their  forms,   States  which  have  j 
no  common  umpire  must  be  their  own  judges 
and  execute  their  own  decisions." 

Looking  forward  to  the  ultimate  dissolution  of 
the  Union  and  the  erection  of  a  Northern  Confed- 
eracy as  one  of  the  means  to  secure  that  end, 
they  recommended  amendments  to  the  Constitu- 
tion which  they  must  have  known  would  not  be 
adopted.  Their  rejection  it  was  hoped,  no  doubt, 
would  "fire  the  Northern  mind  and  precipitate" 
the  New  England  States  "into  a  revolution." 
Seeing  the  enormity  of  their  proceedings  and 
that  merited  punishment  would  likely  be  visited 
upon  them  by  the  Government,  they  too  entered 
their  solemn  protest  against  coercion,  and  de- 
clared "if  the  Union  be  destined  to  dissolution 
by  reason  of  the  multiplied  abuses  of  bad  admin- 
istration, it  should  be  if  possible  the  work  of 
peaceable  times  and  deliberate  consent,"  and 
that  "a  separation  by  equitable  arrangement 
will  be  preferable  to  an  alliance  by  constraint 
among  nominal  friends  but  real  enemies." 

We  pause  but  to  remark  that  the  amendments 
to  the  Constitution  proposed  by  this  sectional 
Convention  were  never  adopted,  the  New  Eng- 
land States  remained  in  the  Union,  peace  and 
prosperity  again  blessed  the  land,  and  the  con- 
spirators, abhorred  and  shunned  by  men,  silently 
passed  along  to  a  grave  of  infamy. 

At  a  subsequent  period  a  movement  somewhat 
similar  in  its  nature  was  inaugurated  in  some  of 
the  Southern  States,  and  your  Committee  hope 
that  the  allusion  will  give  no  offense  to  Georgia. 
The  grievance  complained  of  was  the  tariff  act  of 
1828.  South  Carolina  took  the  incipient  step  and 
declared  the  Cons:  itution  to  be  a  compact  between 
States  as  independent  sovereignties  and  not  a  gov- 
ernment of  the  people— that  the  Federal  Govern- 
ment was  responsible  to  the  State  Legislatures, 
when  it  assumed  powers  not  conferred — that  not- 
withstanding a  tribunal  was  appointed  under  the 
Constitution  to  decide  controversies  where  the 
United  States  was  a  party,  there  were  some  ques- 


tions that  must  occur  between  the  Government 
and  the  States,  which  it  would  be  unsafe  to  sub- 
mit to  any  judicial  tribunal;  and  finally,  that  the 
State  had  a  right  to  judge  for  itself  as  to  infrac- 
tions of  the  Constitution.  Alabama,  Virginia, 
and  Georgia  having  yielded  assent  to  this  exposi- 
tion of  the  principles  of  the  Government,  a  Con- 
vention was  assembled  in  South  Carolina,  which 
at  once  declared  the  obnoxious  law  to  be  null  and 
void  and  of  no  binding  force  upon  the  citizens  of 
that  State.  It  was  further  resolved,  that  in  case 
of  an  attempt  by  the  General  Government  to  en- 
force the  tariff  laws  of  1828  or  1832,  the  Union  was 
to  be  dissolved,  and  a  Convention  called  to  form  an 
independent  government  of  that  State ;  and  in  order 
that  the  nullification  might  be  thorough  and  com- 
plete, it  was  provided,  that  no  appeal  should  be 
permitted  to  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United 
States  in  any  question  concerning  the  validity  of 
the  ordinance  or  of  the  laws  that  might  be  passed 
by  the  Legislature  to  give  it  effect.  In  pursuance 
of  this  scheme,  the  Governor  was  authorized  by 
the  Legislature  to  call  on  the  militia  of  the  State 
to  resist  the  enforcement  of  the  Federal  laws; 
arms  and  munitions  of  war  were  placed  at  his 
disposal,  and  the  State  judiciary  was  to  be  exon- 
erated from  their  oaths  to  support  the  Federal 
Constitution.  Treason  to  the  Union  became  sanc- 
tified with  the  name  of  patriotism,  and  itshideous 
deformity  was  attempted  to  be  shielded  by  the 
mantle  of  State  sovereignty. 

At  this  juncture  appeared  the  proclamation  of 
Jackson,  explaining  the  nature  of  the  American 
Government,  denying  the  pretended  right  of  sov- 
ereignty and  claiming  the  supremacy  of  the  Fede- 
ral Constitution.  A  military  force  was  ordered  to 
assemble  at  Charleston,  and  a  sloop  of  war  was 
dispatched  to  the  same  point,  to  protect  the  Fed- 
eral officers  in  the  discharge  of  their  duties.  False 
theories  were  exploded;  the  tide  of  revolution 
that  threatened  to  engulf  the  entire  South  wras 
checked;  the  passions  of  the  moment  subsided; 
the  public  mind  that  had  been  maddened  by  the 
unlicensed  declamation  of  the  demagogue,  was 
remitted  to  calm  reflection,  and  soon  the  whole 
country  responded  to  the  patriotic  sentiment  of 
the  iron-nerved  statesman :  "  Our  Federal  Union- 
it  must  be  preserved." 

We  pause  but  to  remark,  that  the  revenues 
were  collected,  peace  was  preserved,  the  country 
was  saved,  and  a  new  batch  of  restless  men  con- 
signed to  oblivion  by  an  indignant  people.  Other 
instances  might  be  given  in  which  false  con- 
structions of  the  Constitution  have  been  urged 
with  the  obvious  intention  ultimately  to  destroy 
it;  but  your  Committee  feel  assured  that  the 
instrument  itself,  when  viewed  in  connection  with 
the  history  of  its  adoption,  cannot  be  so  tortured 
as  to  sanction  the  right  of  secession.  It  is  an 
instrument  of  delegated  powers,  granted  by  "the 
people  of  the  United    States,  in  order  to  form  a 


55 


more  perfect  Union,  establish  justice,  insure  do- 
mestic tranquility,  provide  for  the  common  de- 
fense, promote  the  general  welfare,  and  secure 
the  blessings  of  liberty  to  themselves  and  their 
posterity." 

All  legislative  powers  granted  in  the  Constitu- 
tion are  vested  in  a  Congress,  composed  of  a 
Senate  and  House  of  Representatives.  After  an 
express  enumeration  of  grants  of  power  that  may 
be  exercised  by  that  body,  it  is  further  provided 
that  Congress  shall  have  power  "to  make  all  laws 
which  shall  be  necessary  and  proper  for  carrying 
into  execution  the  foregoing  powers,  and  all  other 
powers  vested  by  this  Constitution  in  the  Gov- 
ernment of  the  United  States  or  in  any  depart- 
ment or  officer  thereof." 

It  is  then  provided,  that  "the  laws  of  the  United 
States,  which  shall  be  made  in  pursuance"  of 
these  grants  of  power,  "shall  be  the  supreme  law 
of  the  land,  and  the  Judges  in  every  State,"  in 
their  administration  of  justice,  "shall  be  bound 
thereby,"  notwithstanding  the  Constitution  and 
laws  of  their  own  State  may  be  to  the  contrary. 

"The  powers  not  delegated  to  the  United 
States  by  the  Constitution,  nor  prohibited  by  it 
to  the  States,  are  reserved  to  the  States  respec- 
tively, or  to  the  people."  If  the  framers  of  the 
Constitution  had  stopped  at  this  point  and  fur- 
nished us  no  tribunal  before  which  the  humblest 
citizen  may  obtain  redress  when  the  limitations 
of  the  instrument  shall  be  exceeded  by  the  law- 
making power,  the  pretext  for  the  assumed  right 
would  be  infinitely  more  plausible.  But  such  is 
not  the  case.  The  powers  delegated  having  been 
granted  by  the  people  for  purposes  of  permanent 
and  perpetual  government,  cannot  be  withdrawn 
by  any  State  or  any  number  of  States,  except  in 
the  mode  indicated  in  the  Constitution  itself. 
These  grants  of  power  were  at  the  time  supposed 
to  be  essential  to  the  common  good ;  that  being  of 
a  general  nature,  it  were  best  to  confer  their  exer- 
cise upon  a  national  government.  This  having  been 
done,  the  several  States  cannot  be  regarded  as 
perfect  sovereignties.  The  people  of  the  whole 
Union  having  surrendered  to  the  General  Govern- 
ment a  portion  of  their  powers— which  are  mate- 
rial attributes  of  sovereignty— and  having  de- 
clared that  Government  to  be  the  supreme  law  of 
the  land,  it  cannot  be  seriously  urged  that  any 
number  of  the  people  organizing  a  State  Govern- 
ment, may  confer  upon  it  powers  with  which 
they  have  already  parted. 

But,  in  order  to  protect  the  people  of  each  and 
every  State  against  encroachment  by  the  Federal 
authority;  to  prevent  interference  by  the  States 
with  powers  delegated  to  the  Federal  Government, 
and  to  preserve  to  each  its  appropriate  rights  for 
all  time  to  come,  a  wise  provision  was  made 
which  so  far,  it  must  be  admitted,  has  answered 
all  the  ends  for  which  it  was  adopted. 


Controversies  must  necessarily  spring  up  in  the 
administration  of  governments,  so  complicated 
in  their  nature,  for  each  may  be  said  to  be  sove- 
reign within  its  appropriate  sphere,  and  in  or- 
der that  a  peaceable  solution  may  be  had  in  every 
possible  case  that  can  arise,  our  forefathers  pro- 
Aided  an  arbiter  in  the  judiciary  department  of 
the  government;  its  power  extending  "to  all 
cases  in  law  and  equity,  arising  under  this  Con- 
stitution, the  laws  of  the  United  States,  and  trea- 
ties made  or  which  shall  be  made  under  their 
authority;"  "to  controversies  to  which  the  United 
States  shall  be  a  party;  to  controversies  between 
two  or  more  States;  between  a  State  and  citizens 
of  another  State;  between  citizens  of  different 
States;  between  citizens  of  the  same  State  claim- 
ing lands  under  grants  of  different  States,  and 
between  a  State  or  citizens  thereof  and  foreign 
States,  citizens  or  subjects." 

This,  in  connection  with  the  other  provisions  of 
the  Constitution  referred  to,  renders  our  Govern- 
ment, in  the  judgment  of  your  committee,  the 
best  ever  established  by  man.  Whether  Georgia 
and  her  sister  seceding  States  may  be  able  to  de- 
vise a  better  tho  future  alone  can  determine. 

If  we  were  disposed  further  to  demonstrate  the 
heterodoxy  of  secession  as  a  right  deducible  from 
the  Constitution,  we  might  refer  to  other  plain 
provisions  of  that  instrument,  and  ask  pertinent 
questions  as  to  the  reason  of  their  adoption,  and 
the  consequences  flowing  from  an  admission  of 
the  right. 

Why  grant  the  power  "to  borrow  money  on  the 
credit  of  the  United  States,"  if  the  State,  perhaps 
receiving  the  benefit  of  the  fund,  can  withdraw 
and  absolve  her  citizens  from  all  obligation  to 
pay?  Why  the  power  "to  lay  and  collect  taxes, 
duties,  imposts,  and  excises,  to  pay  the  debts  and 
provide  for  the  common  defense  and  general  wel- 
fare of  the  United  States,"  if  a  simple  ordinance 
of  secession  excuses  the  citizen  and  nullifies  the 
provision  for  calling  "forth  the  militia  to  execute 
the  laws  of  the  Union?"  Why  the  power  "to  de- 
clare war,"  if,  in  the  midst  of  hostilities,  the  State 
whose  representatives  may  have  voted  for  the 
declaration,  but,  now,  wearied  of  its  calamities, 
may  seek  peace  in  secession,  and  leave  the  Gov- 
ernment to  struggle  with  its  dangers  and  its  bur- 
dens? Why  declare  that  "no  State  shall  enter 
into  any  treaty,  alliance,  or  confederation;"  that 
"no  State  shall  enter  into  any  agreement  or  com- 
pact with  another  State,  or  with  a  foreign  power/' 
if  all  these  things  can  be  done  in  perfect  accord- 
ance with  the  Constitution? 

We  might  also  refer  to  the  acquisition  of  Flori- 
da, the  purchase  of  Louisiana,  the  payment  of* 
the  Texas  debt,  and  the  boasted  "indemnity  for 
the  past  and  security  for  the  future,"  supposed  to 
be  realized  at  the  close  of  the  war  with  Mexico, 
all  of  which  were  mere  "promises  to  the  ear,"  if 
the  doctrine  of  secession  be  true. 


56 


But  were  your  Committee  disposed  to  abandon 
the  dictates  of  patriotism  and  forget  for  the  mo- 
ment their  loyalty  to  the  Constitution  of  the  na- 
tion, a  proper  regard  for  the  local  interests  of  our 
own  State  would  demand  at  our  hands  an  exami- 
nation of  the  probable  consequences  of  the  ac- 
tion proposed.  We  are  told  by  the  Commissioner 
that  Georgia  acted  for  herself,  and  adopted  such 
course  as  she  deemed  best  calculated  to  protect 
her  honor  and  secure  the  welfare  of  her  citizens. 

If  it  be  true  that  each  State  possesses  the  right 
to  judge  for  itself,  and  its  own  peculiar  interests 
should  control  its  policy  in  emergencies  like  the 
present,  and  that  Georgia  in  the  exercise  of  that 
right  has  acted  with  an  eye  single  to  her  own 
welfare,  it  may  well  be  doubted  whether  a  simi- 
lar instinct  of  self-preservation  on  our  part  should 
be  influenced  by  the  conduct  of  others. 

It  is  urged  that  the  Northern  mind  has  become 
go  corrupted,  by  the  anti-slavery  mania  of  the 
day,  as  to  render  this  species  of  property  inse- 
cure. If  secession  could  remoA^e  our  State  beyond 
the  reach  of  this  morbid  sentiment,  or  build 
mountains  and  seas  upon  our  borders  to  arrest 
the  operation  of  its  influence,  the  remedy  pro- 
posed might  at  least  be  regarded  in  a  more  favor- 
able light.  Our  State  is  surrounded  by  territory 
which,  in  the  event  of  separation,  will  pass  un- 
der the  jurisdiction  of  a  foreign  government;  and 
if  it  be  once  admitted  that  fraternal  regard  and  a 
sense  of  mutual  dependence,  cemented  by  the 
associations  of  the  past  and  the  hopes  of  the  fu- 
ture, are  now  insufficient  to  check  the  insubordi- 
nate citizens  of  adjacent  States,  what  limit  to 
outrage  may  be  anticipated  when  these  restraints 
are  removed ! 

Supposing  that  a  peaceable  separation  could  be 
accomplished,  new  and  important  questions 
would  be  precipitated  upon  us.  The  present  ele- 
ments of  our  prosperity  as  one  people  would  be- 
come the  sources  of  bitter  strife.  What  gives 
power  as  a  nation  would  bring  about  conflicts  be- 
tween its  different  societies,  as  independent  sov- 
ereignties, that  must  soon  terminate  in  the  de- 
struction of  the  weaker  and  the  comparative  ruin 
of  the  stronger.  The  great  rivers  of  our  country, 
now  floating:  the  commerce  of  a  happy  people, 
would  daily  present  questions  for  angry  contro- 
versy between  rival  republics.  There  being  no 
common  arbiter  for  the  adjustment  of  these  ex- 
citing differences,  an  appeal  to  the  sword  will  be 
made  to  settle  them.  Treaties  will  likely  fail  to 
secure  what  now  is  claimed  as  a  constitutional 
right.  In  this  view  of  the  case,  Missouri  having 
withdrawn  from  the  Union  to  obtain  greater  secu- 
rity in  negro  property,  would  suddenly  find  her- 
self surrounded  by  territory  affording  for  the  fu- 
gitive slave  an  asylum  as  safe  as  the  Canadian 
provinces.  Secession  does  not  commend  itself  to 
Missouri  as  a  proper  solution  of  the  problem,  in- 


volved in  political  strife  upon  the  territorial  ques- 
tion. 

It  has  been  already  remarked  that  the  idea  of 
excluding  slavery  from  the  Territories,  as  enter- 
tained by  the  Republican  party,  is  in  conflict 
with  an  unreversed  decision  of  the  Supreme 
Court  of  the  United  States,  and  was  wholly  aban- 
doned by  that  party  in  the  recent  organization  of 
territorial  governments.  The  right  to  carry 
slaves  into  all  the  public  domain  is  to-day  clear 
and  undisputed,  and  ir'  the  soil  and  climate  be 
such  as  to  forbid  the  permanent  existence  of  the 
institution  therein,  secession  will  scarcely  be  re- 
garded by  Missouri  as  a  remedy  for  the  supposed 
grievance. 

Again  we  may  ask,  if  the  Southern  States  with- 
draw from  the  Government,  will  it  not  be  argued 
that  they  have  abandoned  all  interests  in  the  pub- 
lic property  ?  We  waive  the  question  of  right, 
for  evidently  it  resolves  itself  into  one  of  power, 
and  it  is  at  least  certain  that  such  will  be  the  view 
of  those  from  whom  we  have  separated.  This  of 
itself  will  inaugurate  a  contest  of  the  most  vio- 
lent character;  and  whether  the  institution  of 
slavery  may  be  safely  planted  upon  any  soil  in 
the  midst  of  hostilities,  originating  from  these 
causes,  is  a  question  deserving  our  serious  consid- 
eration. 

In  conclusion,  Mr.  President,  your  Committee 
desire  to  express  the  hope  that  the  errors  of  the 
day,  both  North  and  South,  will  soon  be  aban- 
doned, that  fraternal  love  will  be  restored  by  ad- 
justment, honorable  alike  to  every  section,  and 
that  Georgia  and  Missouri  may  continue  in  the 
Union  of  our  fathers,  to  bless  and  be  blessed,  in 
in  the  great  family  of  States. 

In  every  point  of  view  in  which  we  have  been 
able  to  examine  the  communication  soliciting  our 
withdrawal  from  the  Union,  whether  viewed  as  a 
constitutional  right,  a  remedy  for  existing  evils., 
or  a  preventive  of  anticipated  wrongs,  we  find  it 
in  conflict  with  our  allegiance  to  a  good  Govern- 
ment, and  wholly  inefficient  to  accomplish  the 
ends  designed. 

We  therefore  recommend  to  the  Convention  the 
adoption  of  the  following  resolutions : 
Resolved  by  the  people  of  Missouri,  in  Conven- 
tion assembled: 

1st.  That  the  communication  made  to  this  Con- 
vention by  the  Hon.  Luther  J.  Glenn,  as  &  Com- 
missioner from  the  State  of  Georgia,  so  far  as  it 
asserts  the  constitutional  right  of  secession,  meets 
with  our  disapproval. 

2d.  That  whilst  we  reprobate  in  common  with 
Georgia,  the  violation  of  constitutional  duty  by 
Northern  fanatics,  we  cannot  approve  the  seces- 
sion of  Georgia  and  her  sister  States,  as  a 
measure  likely  to  prove  beneficial  either  to  us  or 
to  themselves. 

3d.  That  in  our  opinion  the  dissolution  of  the 
Union  would  be  ruinous  to  the  best  interests    of 


57 


Missouri,  hence  no  effort  should  he  spared  on  her 
part  to  secure  its  continued  blessings  to  her 
people,  and  she  will  labor  for  an  adjustment  of 
all  existing  differences  on  such  a  basis  as  will  be 
compatible  with  the  interest  and  the  honor  of  all 
the  States. 

4th.  That  this  Convention  exhorts  Georgia  and 
the  other  seceding  States  to  desist  from  the  re- 
volutionary measures  commenced  by  them,  and 
unite  their  voice  with  ours  in  restoring  peace  and 
cementing  the  Union  of  our  fathers. 

5th.  Resolved,  That  the  President  of  this  Con- 
vention transmit  a  copy  of  these  resolutions,  to- 
gether with  a  copy  of  those  concerning  our  Fede- 
ral relations  adopted  by  the  Convention,  to  the 
President  of  the  Convention  of  Georgia,  or  if  the 
Convention  shall  have  adjourned,  then  to  the 
Governor  of  said  State. 

JOHN  B.  HENDERSON, 
Chairman  Com.  on  Commissioner  from  Ga. 

Mr.  Birch,  (of  the  same  Committee,)  desired 
to  have  the  following  resolutions  read  for  infor- 
mation, laid  upon  the  table  and  printed,  with  the 
understanding  that,  at  the  proper  time,  he  would 
offer  them  as  a  substitute  for  the  resolutions 
which  accompany  the  report  of  the  Committee. 

Resolved,  That,  whilst  denying  the  legal  right 
of  a  State  to  secede  from  the  Union,  (as  assumed 
in  the  communication  which  has  been  made  to 
this  State  by  the  Commissioner  from  the  State  of 
Georgia,)  we  recognize  in  lieu  thereof  the  right 
of  revolution,  should  sufficient  reason  arise  there- 
for. 

2.  That,  whilst  in  common  with  the  State  of 
Georgia,  we  deplore  and  reprobate  the  sectional 
disregard  of  duty  and  fraternity  so  forcibly  pre- 
sented by  her  Commissioner,  we  are  nevertheless 
undespairing  of  future  justice;  nor  will  we  des- 
pair until  our  complaints  shall  have  been  specific- 
ally and  unavailingly  submitted  to  the  Northern 
People. 

3.  That  we  concur  with  the  Commissioner  of 
the  State  of  Georgia,  that  the  possession  of  slave 
property  is  a  constitutional  right,  and  as  such 
ought  to  continue  to  be  recognized  by  the  Federal 
Government;  that,  if  it  shall  invade  or  impair 
that  right,  the  slaveholding  States  should  be  found 
united  in  its  defense;  and  that  in  such  events  as 
may  legitimately  follow,  this  State  will  share  the 
dangers  and  the  destiny  of  her  sister  slave  States. 

4.  That,  relying  upon  the  restoration  of  frater- 
nal relations  on  the  basis  of  adjustment  thus  and 
otherwise  denoted  in  the  action  of  this  Conven- 
tion, the  President  is  requested  to  communicate 
to  each  of  the  seceding  States  a  copy  of  its  re- 
solves, and  to  invoke  for  them  the  same  earnest 
and  respectful  consideration  in  which  they  are 
submitted,  and  which  restrains  this  Convention 
from  any  further  criticism  upon  the  mode  or  man- 


ner, the  motives  or  the  sufficiency  for  the  action 
of  the  seceding  States,  than  to  add,  that  it  has 
elicited  our  unfeigned  regrets. 

Mr.  Welch  moved  to  lay  the  report  of 
the  Committee,  and  the  report  of  the  minority 
on  the  table,  and  to  make  them  the  special  order 
for  the  third  Monday  in  December  next. 

Mr.  Sheeley  called  for  a  division  of  the 
question  which  was  ordered. 

The  first  question,  to  lay  the  reports  of  the 
majority  and  minority  on  the  table  was  deci- 
ded in  the  affirmative. 

The  second  question,  to  make  them  the  spe- 
cial order  of  the  day  for  the  third  Monday  in 
December  next,  was  decided  in  the  affirmative 
by  the  following  vote,  the  ayes  and  noes  hav- 
ing been  demanded  by  Mr.  Welch. 

Ayes.— Messrs.  Bartlett,  Pass,  Bast,  Bogv, 
Brown,  Calhoun,  Cayce,  Chenault,  Collier, 
Crawford,  Doniphan  Donnell,  Douglass,  Drake, 
Dunn,  Frayser,  Flood,  Givens,  Gorin,  Gravely, 
Harbin,  Hatcher,  Hill,  Holt,  Hough,  Hudgins, 
Howell,  Irwin,  Jamison,  Kidd,  Knott,  Marma- 
duke,  Matson,  McCormack,  McDowell,  Mor- 
row, Moss,  Noell,  Phillips,  Pomeroy,  Rankin, 
Redd,  Ritcheyjloss,  Rowland,  lawyer,  Sayre, 
Shackelford  of  Howard,  Shackelford  of  St. 
Louis,  Sheeley,  Waller,  Watkins,  Welch, 
Woodson,  Woolfolk  and  Zimmerman — 56. 

Noes.— Messrs.  Allen,  Birch,  Breckinridge, 
Bridge,  Bush,  Eitzen,  Foster,  Gamble,  Hall  of 
Buchanan,  Hall  of  Randolph,  Henderson,  Hen- 
drick,  Hitchcock,  Holmes,  How,  Isbell,  Jackson, 
Johnson,  Leeper,  Linton,  Long,  Marvin,  Mau- 
pin,  McClurg,  McFerran,  Meyer,  Norton,  Orr, 
Ray,  Scott,  Smith  of  Linn,  Smith  of  St.  Louis, 
Stewart,  Tindall,Turner,Wilson,Wright,  Van- 
buskiik  and  Mr.  President— 40. 

Mr.  Shackelford,  of  Howard,  withdrew 
the  amendment  offered  by  him  on  yesterday, 
to  the  accepted  substitute  of  Mr.  Wilson  to 
the  seventh  resolution  of  the  report  of  the 
Committee  an  Federal  Relations. 


Mr.  Hall,  of  Buchanan,  offered  the  follow- 
ing as  an  amendment  to  the  pending  amend- 
ment, by  adding  as  follows  :  'The  President  of 
this  Convention  shall  be  added  to,  and  be  ex 
officio  Chairman  of  said  Committee. 

Mr.  Birch  moved  that  the  seventh  resolu- 
tion, and  all  pending  amendments  be  referred 
to  the  Committee  on  Federal  Relations,  with 
instructions  to  report  to  the  Convention  this 
day,  at  two  o'clock  p.  m.,  which  was  agreed  to. 

Mr.  Gantt  offered  the  following  resolution, 
which  was  adopted. 

Resolved,  That  two  hundred  copies  of  the 
report  of  the  Committee  on  the  Communica- 
tion from  Georgia,   together  with  both  sets  of 


58 


resolutions  accompanying  the  same,  be  printed 
for  the  use  of  the   Convention. 

On  motion  of  Mr.  Welch,  the  Convention 
adjourned  until  2  o'clock  p.  m. 

EVENING  SESSION. 

The  Convention  met  pursuant  to  adjourn- 
ment. 

Mr.  Gamble  from  the  Committee  on  Eederal 
Relations,  to  whom  was  referred  the  seventh 
resolution  and  pending  amendments,  reported 
the  following  : 

Resolved,  That  there  shall  be  a  committee 
consisting  of  the  President  of  this  Convention, 
who  shall  be  ex  officio  chairman,  and  seven 
members,  one  from  each  Congressional  district 
of  the  State,  to  be  elected  by  this  Convention, 
a  majority  of  which  shall  have  power  to  call 
this  Convention  together  at  such  time  prior  to 
the  third  Monday  in  December  next,  and  at 
such  place  as  they  may  think  the  public  exi- 
gencies require  ;  and  in  case  any  vacancy  shall 
happen  in  said  committee  by  death,  resigna- 
tion, or  otherwise  during  the  recess  of  this 
Convention,  the  remaining  members  or  mem- 
ber of  said  committee  shall  have  power  to  fill 
such  vacancy — which  on  motion  was  adopted. 

By  the  unanimous  consent  of  the  Convention 
the  following  amendment  wras  adopted  : 

Add  to  the  fifth  resolution  as  Mr.  Sactcel- 
*ord's  amendment  :  "And  in  order  to  restora- 
tion of  harmony  and  fraternal  feeling  between 
the  different  sections,  we  would  recommend 
the  policy  of  withdrawing  the  Federal  troops 
from  the  forts  within  the  borders  of  the  sece- 
ding States  where  there  is  danger  of  collision 
between  the  State  and  Eederal  troops." 

Mr.  Gamble  called  up  the  following  resolu- 
tion heretofore  introduced  by  him  from  the 
committee  on  Eederal  Relations  as  an  addi- 
tional resolution  to  the  report  of  said  commit- 
tee : 

Whereas,  It  is  probable  that  the  Convention 
of  the  State  of  Virginia,  now  in  session,  will 
request  a  meeting  of  the  delegates  from  the 
border  States  or  border  slave  States,  for  the 
purpose  of  devising  some  plan  for  the  adjust- 
ment of  our  national  difficulties  ;  and  Whereas, 
the  State  of  Missouri  participates  strongly  in 
the  desire  for  such  adjustment,  and  desirous  to 
show  respect  for  the  wishes  of  Virginia, 
Therefore 

Resolved,  That  this  Convention  will  elect 
seven  delegates,  one  from  each  congressional 
district,  whose  duty  it  shall  be  to  attend  at  such 
time  and  place  as  may  designated  by  the  Con- 


vention of  the  State  of  Virginia  for  the  meet- 
ing of  delegates  from  the  border  States  or  bor- 
der slave  States  ;  and  if  there  should  assemble 
then  and  there,  delegates  duly  accredited  from 
a  majority  of  the  States  invited  to  such  confer- 
ence, then  the  delegates  from  this  Convention 
shall  enter  into  conference  with  them,  and  shall 
endeavor  to  devise  a  plan  for  the  amicable  and 
equitable  adjustment  of  all  matters  in  differ- 
ence between  the  States  of  this  Union.  And 
the  delegates  appointed  under  this  resolution, 
shall  report  their  proceedings  in  such  confer- 
ence, and  any  plan  that  may  be  there  agreed 
upon  to  this  Convention  for  its  approval  or 
rejection. 

Mr.  Redd  offered  the  following  as  a  substi- 
tute for  the  resolution  : 

Whereas,  The  Convention  of  the  State  of 
Virginia,  now  in  session,  has  adopted  a  resolu- 
tion in  the  following  words,  to  wit  :  "  The  pe- 
culiar relations  of  the  States  of  Delaware,  Ma- 
ryland, Virginia,  North  Carolina,  Tennessee, 
Kentucky,  Missouri  and  Arkansas  to  the  other 
States,  make  it  proper  in  the  judgment  of 
this  Convention,  that  the  former  States  should 
consult  together  and  concert  such  measures  for 
their  final  action,  as  the  honor,  interest,  and 
the  safety  of  the  people  thereof  may  demand, 
and  for  that  purpose  the  proper  authorities  of 
those  States  are  requested  to  appoint  Commis- 
sioners to  meet  Commissioners,  to  be  appointed 
by  this  Convention,  on  behalf  of  the  people  of 
this  State,  at  Frankfort,  in  the  State  of  Ken- 
tucky, on  the  last  Monday  in  May  next  ;  And 
Whereas,  this  Convention  approving  of  said 
resolutions,  and  being  desirous  of  co-operating 
with  the  States  named  therein  for  the  purpose 
named  ; 

Therefore,  Resolved,  That  seven  Commission- 
ers be  appointed  by  the  President  of  this  Con- 
vention to  meet  the  Commissioners  from  the 
States  named  in  this  resolution,  at  the  time 
and  place  therein  named  ;  and  said  Commis- 
sioners are  hereby  instructed  to  report  their 
action,  and  the  action  of  said  Convention  to 
this  body  at  the  next  meeting  thereof. 

Mr.  Sawyer  offered  the  following  amend- 
ment to  the  substitute  : 

Strike  out  all  after  the  word  'resolved,'  and 
insert  the  following  :  That  one  delegate  from 
each  Congressional  district  be  elected  by  the 
qualified  voters  of  the  respective  districts, 
whose  duty  it  shall  be  to  attend  at  the  time  and 
place  designated  by  the  Convention  of  the 
State  of  Virginia,  for  the  meeting  of  the  dele- 
gates from  the  border   States  ;    and  if  there 


59 


shall  assemble  then  and  there,  delegates  duly 
accredited  from  a  majority  of  the  States  invited 
to  such  Convention,  then  the  delegates  from 
this  State  shall  enter  into  conference  with  them, 
and  shall  endeavor  to  devise  apian  for  the  ami- 
cable and  equitable  adjustment  of  all  matters 
in  difference  between  the  States  of  this  Union  ; 
and  this  Convention  urges  the  Legislature  of 
this  State  to  make  provisions  by  law  for  the 
elections  of  said  delegates  by  the  people,  and 
in  the  event,  the  Legislature  shall  fail  to  make 
such  provision  by  law,  for  such  election,  then, 
that  the  President  of  this  Convention  shall  ap- 
point said  delegates,  and  the  delegates  selected 
under  this  resolution  shall  report  their  proceed- 
ings in  such  conference,  and  any  plan  that  may 
there  be  agreed  upon,  to  this  Convention  for 
their  approval  or  rejection. 

Mr.  Shackelford,  of  Howard,  moved  the 
previous  question  which  was  ordered,  the 
question  then  being,  "shall  the  main  question 
be  now  put  V  it  was  decided  in  the  affirmative. 

The  question  then  being  on  the  adoption  of 
the  amendment  to  be  substituted,  it  was  deci- 
ded in  the  negative  by  the  following  vote,  the 
ayes  and  noes  having  been  called  for  by  Mr. 
Brown  : 

Ayes.— Messrs.  Bartlett,Bast,  Birch,  Brown, 
Calhoun,  Cayce,  Chenault,  Collier,  Crawford, 
Doniphan,  Donnell,  Douglass,  Drake,  Frayser, 
Givins,  Gorin,  Harbin,  "Hatcher,  Hill,  Holt, 
Hough,  Hudgins,  Jamison,  Marmaduke,  Mat- 
son,  Rankin,  Redd,  Ritch^v,  Rowland,  Sawyer, 
Sayre,  Scott,  Sheeley,  Waller,  Watkins  and 
Zimmerman. — 37. 

Noes. — Messrs.  Allen,  Bass,  Bogy,  Breck- 
inridge, Bridge,  Bush,  Eitzen,  Flood,  Foster, 
Gamble,  Gantt,  Gravelv,  Hall  of  Buchanan, 
Hall  of  Randolph,  Henderson,  Hendrick, 
Hitchcock,  Holmes,  How,  Howell,  Irwin,  Is- 
bell,  Jackson,  Johnson,  Kidd,  Leeper,  Linton, 
Lon<r,  Marvin, Maupin,  McClurg,  McCormack, 
McFerran,  Meyer,  Morrow,  Moss,  Noell,  Nor- 
ton, Orr,  Phillips,  Pomerov,  Ray,  Ross,  Shack- 
elford of  Howard,  Shackelford  of  St.  Louis, 
Smirh  of  Linn,  Smith  of  St.  Louis,  Stewart, 
Tindall.  Turner,  VWlch,  Wilson,  Woodson, 
Wool  folk,  Vanbuskirk  and  Mr.  President— 57. 

Absent  :  Messrs.  Broadhead,  Wright  and 
Knott. 

Sick  :  Messrs.  Comingo  and  Pipkin. 

By  leave  of  the  Convention,  Mr.  Redd  with- 
drew his  substitute,  and  offered  the  following 
amendment,  which  was  rejected  by  the  follow- 
ing vote,  the  ayes  and  noes  having  been  de- 
manded by  Mr.  Welch  : 

Amend  by  striking  out  the  words,  "this 
Convention  will  elect  delegates,"  and  insert  in 
the  place  thereof,  the  word?,  "the  President 
is  authorized  to  appoint  seven  delegates. n 


Ayes — Messrs.  Bass,  Bast,  Brown,  Drake, 
Flood,  Givens,  Gorin,  Hatcher,  Hudgins.  Mat- 
son,  Redd,  Sawyer,  Sayre,  Turner  and  Wood- 
son— 15. 

Noks — Messrs.  Allen,  Bartlet',  Biich,  Bogy, 
Breckinridge,  Bridge,  Bush,  Calhoun,  Cayce, 
Chenault.  Crawford,  Doniphan,  Dunn,  Eitzen, 
Frayser,  Foster.  Gamble,  GrHiit,  GravHy,  Hall 
of  Buchanan,  Harbin,  Henderson,  Hendrick, 
Hill,  Hitchcock,  Holmes,  Holt,  Hough,  How, 
Howell,  Irwin,  Isbell,  Jackson,  Jamison, 
Johnson,  Kidd,  Leeper,  Linton,  Long,  Manna- 
duke,  Maivin,  Maupin,  McClu  g.  McCormack, 
McDowell,  McFerran,  Meyer,  Morrow,  Moss, 

I  Noell,  Norton,  Orr,  Phillips,  Pomeroy,  Ran- 
kin,   Ray,    Ritchey,    Ross,    Rowland,    Scott, 

!   Shackelford   of  Howard,    Shackelford   of    St. 

!  Loui*,  Sheeley,  Sinilh  of  St.  Louis,  Smith  of 
Linn,  Stewart,  Tindall,  Waller,  Watkins, 
Welch,  Wilson,  W>o!folk,  Wright,  Vanbus- 
kirk, Zimmerman  and  Mr.  President — 76. 

Absent — Messrs.  Broadhead,  Collier,  Co- 
mingo, Donnell,  Douglass,  Hall  of  Ranlolph, 
and  Knott. 

Sick — Mr.  Pipkin. 

The  resolution  was  then  adopted  by  the  fol- 
lowing vote,  the  ayes  and  noes  having  been 
demanded  : 

Ayes — Messrs.  Allen,  Bartlett,  Bass,  Bast, 
Birch,  Bogy,  Breckinridge,  Bridge,  Brown, 
Bush,  Calhoun,  Cayce,  Chenault,  Collier, Craw- 
ford, Doniphan,  Donnell,  Douglass,  Drake, 
Dunn,  Eitzen,  Frayser,  Flood,  Foster,  Gamble, 
Gantt,  Givens,  Gorin,  Gravely,  Hall  of  Bu- 
chanan, Hall  of  Randolph,  Harbin,  Hatcher, 
Henderson,  Hendrick,  Hill,  Hitchcock, Holmes, 
Holt,  Honoh,  How,  Howell,  Hudgins,  Irwin, 
Isbell,  Jackson,  Jamison,  Johnson,  Kidd, 
Knott,  Linton,  Long,  Maimaduke,  Matson, 
Maupin,  McClurg,  McCormack,  McDowell, 
McFerran,  Meyer,  Morrow,  Mos=,  Noell,  Nor- 
ton, Phillips,  Poraeroy,  Ray,  Rankin,  Redd, 
Ross,  Rowland,  Sawyer,  Sayre,  Scott,  Shack- 
elford of  Howard,  Shackelford  of  St.  Louis, 
Sheeley,  Smith  of  Linn,  Smith  of  St.  Louis, 
Stewart,  Tindall,  Turner,  Waller,  Watkins, 
Welch,  Wilson,  Woodson,  Woolfolk,  Wright, 
Vanbuskirk.  Zimmerman  and  Mr.  President — 
93. 

Noes — Messrs.  Leeper,  Orr  and  Ritchey — 3. 
Absent — Mr.   Broadhead. 
Sick — Comingo  and  Pipkin. 
Mr.  Irwin  offered  the  following  resolution, 
which  was  adopted  : 

Resolved,  That  this  Convention  will  adjourn 
its  session  in  the  city  of  St.  Louis  on  Friday, 
the  22d  inst.,  at  3  o'clock  p.  m. 

Mr.  Dunn  offered  the  following  resolution, 
which,  on  motion  of  Mr.  Hall,  of  Buchanan, 
was  laid  on  the  table  : 

Resolved,  That  the  delegates  from  each  Con- 
gressional district  be  requested  to  recommend 
a  suitable  person  for  delegate  to  represent 
Missouri  in  the  border  State  Convention,  and 


60 


that  they  report  such  recommendation  to  this 
Convention  to-morrow  morning  at  10  o'clock. 

Mr.    Birch,  from  the  Committee  heretofore 
appointed  to  inquire   into   the   conspiracy   to 


take  the  State  of  Missouri  out   of  the   Union, 
asked  to  be  and  was  discharged. 

On  motion  of  Mr.  Norton,  the  Convention 
adjourned  until  to-morrow  morning  at  nine 
o'clock. 


NINETEENTH    DAY, 


The  Convention  met  pursuant  to  adjourn- 
ment, and  was  opened  with  prayer  by  the  Rev. 
Mr.  Monroe. 

On  motion  of  Mr.  Hall,  of  Buchanan,  the 
reading  of  the  journal  was  dispensed  with. 

On  motion  of  Mr.  Birch,  the  Convention 
proceeded  to  the  election  of  the  members  of 
the  committee  of  seven,  provided  for  in  the 
seventh  resolution,  when 

Mr.  Long  nominated  Mr.  Thomas  T.  Gantt 
of  the  First  Congressional  District.  There 
being  no  other  nomination,  on  motion  of  Mr. 
Hall,  of  Buchanan,  he  was  declared  unani- 
mously elected. 

Second  District — Mr.  Woodson  nominated 
Mr.  J.  T.  Matson,  who  was  declared  elected. 

Third  District — Mr.  Woolfolk  nominated 
Mr.  J.  T.  Tindall. 

On  motion  of  Mr.  Birch  he  was  declared 
unanimously  elected. 

Fourth  District— Mr.  Hall  of  Buchanan, 
nominated  Mr.  Robert  Wilson,  who,  on  motion 
of  Mr.  Doniphan,  was  declared  unanimously 
elected. 

Fifth  District — Mr.  Marvin  nominated  Mr. 
J.  Proc.  Knott,  who,  on  motion  of  Mr.  Shee- 
ley,  was  declared  unanimously  elected. 

Sixth  District — Mr.  Isbell  nominated  Mr. 
McClurg,  who,  on  motion  of  Mr.  Meyer, 
was  declared  unanimously  elected. 

Seventh  District — Mr.  Bogy  nominated  Mr. 
Jas.  R.  McCormack. 

Mr.  Watkins  nominated  Mr.  M.  P.  Cayce. 

The  roll  having  been  called,  there  appeared 
for  Mr.  McCormack: 

Messrs.  Allen,  Bogy,,  Breckinridge,  Bridge, 
Bush,  Calhoun,  Cayce,  Eitzen,  Foster,  Gantt, 
Gravely,  Hall  of  Buchanan,  Hall  of  Randolph, 
Harbin,  Henderson,  Hendrick,  Hitchcock, 
Holmes,  Holt,  How,  Irwin,  Isbell,  Jackson, 
Jamison,  Johnson,  Kidd,  Leeper,  Linton,  Long, 
Marmaduke,  Marvin,  Maupin,  McClurg,  Mc- 
Dowell, McFerran,  Meyer,  Morrow,  Orr,  Phil- 
lips, Pomeroy,  Rankin,  Ritchey,  Ross,  Row- 
land, Shackelford  of  St.  Lous,  Smith  of  Linn, 
Smith  of  St.  Louis,  Tindall,  Turner,  Welch, 
Woolfolk,  Wright,  Vanbuskirk,  Zimmerman 
and   Mr.  President— 56. 


FRIDAY    MORNING   MARCH  22,  1861. 

For  Mr.  Cayce — Messrs.  Bartlett,  Bush, 
Birch,  Brown,  Chenault,  Collier,  Crawford, 
Doniphan,  Donnell,  Drake,  Dunn,  Frayser, 
Flood,  Givens,  Gorin,  Hatcher,  Hill,  Hough, 
Howell,  Hudgins,  Matson,  McCormack,  Moss, 
Noeil,  Norton,  Redd,  Sawyer,  Sayre,  Sheeley, 
Waller,  Watkins  and  Woodson— 32. 

Absent — Messrs.  Bas',  Broadhead,  Doug- 
lass, Gamble,  Knott,  Ray,  Shackelford  of  How- 
ard, Stewart  and  Wilson. 

Sick — Messrs.  Comingo  and  Pipkin. 

Mr.  McCormack  having  received  a  majori- 
ty of  all  the  votes  cast,  was  declared  duly  elect- 
ed from  the  Seventh  Congressional  District. 

On  motion  of  Mr.  Hall,  of  Buchanan,  the 
Convention  proceeded  to  the  election  of  dele- 
gates to  the  border  States  Conversion,  one 
from  each  Congressional  District,  in  their  reg- 
ular order. 

First  District — Mr.  Bridge  nominated  Ham- 
ilton R.  Gamble.  There  being  no  other  nomi- 
nation made,  on  motion  of  Mr.  Hall,  of  Bu- 
chanan, he  was  declared  unanimously  elected. 

Second  District — Mr.  Zimmerman  nomina- 
ted John  B.  Henderson.  Mr.  Howell  nomi- 
nated Warren  Woodson. 

The  roll  having  been  called,  there  appeared 

For  Mr.  Henderson — Messrs.  Allen,  Bogy, 
Breckinridge,  Bridge,  Bush,  Calhoun,  Doug- 
lass, Foster,  Eitzen,  Gantt,  Gravely,  Hall  of 
Buchanan,  Hall  of  Randolph,  Hendrick,  Hitch- 
cock, Holmes,  Holt,  How,  Irwin,  Isbell,  Jack- 
son, Jamison,  Johnson,  Kidd,  Leeper,  Linton, 
Long,  Marvin,  Maupin.  McClurg,  McCormack, 
McFerran,  Meyer,  Morrow,  Orr,  Phillips, 
Pomeroy,  Rankin,  Ross,  Rowland,  Scott, Shack- 
elford of  St.  Louis,  Smith  of  Linn,  Smith  of 
St.  Louis,  Tindall,  Turner,  Woodson,  Wool- 
folk,  Wright,  Vanbuskirk,  Zimmerman  and 
Mr.  President— 52. 

For  Mr.  Woodson — Messrs.  Bartlett,  Bass, 
Bast,  Birch,  Brown,  Chenault.  Collier,  Craw- 
ford, Doniphan,  Donnell,  Drake,  Dunn,  Fray- 
ser, Flood,  Givens,  Gorin,  Harbin,  Hatcher, 
Henderson,  Hill,  Hough,  Howell,  Hudgins, 
Marmaduke,  Matson,  McDowell,  Moss,  Noell, 
Norton,  Redd,  Ritchey,  Sawyer,  Sayre,  Shee- 
ley, Walier,  Watkins  and  Welch — 37. 

Absitnt — -Messrs.  Broadhead,  Cayce,  Gam- 
ble, Knott,  Ray,  Shackelford  of  Howard, 
Stewart  and  Wilson. 

Sick — Comingo  and  Pipkin. 


61 


Mr.  Mends  rson  having  received  a  majority 
of  all  the  votes  cast,  was  declared  duly  elect- 
ed delegate  from  the  Second  Congressional 
District. 

Third  District — Mr.  Rowland  nominated 
Wm.  A.  Hall.  Mr.  Givens  nominated  E.  K. 
Sayre. 

The  roll  having  been  called  there  appeared 

For  Mr.  Hall — Messrs.  Allen,  Birch,  Bogy, 
Breckinridge,  Bridge,  Bush,  Calhoun,  Cayce, 
Douglass,  Eitzen,  Flood,  Foster,  Gantt,  Grave- 
ly, Hall  of  Buchanan,  Henderson,  Hendrick, 
Hitchcock,  Holmes,  Holt,  How,  Howell,  Ir- 
win, Isbell,  Jackson,  Jamison,  Johnson,  Kidd, 
Leeper,  Linton,  Long,  Marmaduke,  Marvin, 
Maupin,  McClurg,  McCormack,  McDowell, 
McFerran,  Meyer,  Morrow,  Noell,  Norton, 
Orr,  Phillips,  Pomeroy,  Rankin,  Ritchey,  Ross, 
Rowland,  Sayre,  Scott,  Shackelford  of  How- 
ard, Shackelford  of  St.  Louis,  Smith  of  Linn, 
Smith  of  St.  Louis,  Stewart,  Tindall,  Turner, 
Welch,  Wilson,  Woodson,  Woolfolk,  Wright, 
Vanbuskirk,  Zimmerman  and  Mr.  President — 
66. 

Fr.  Mr.  Sayre — Messrs.  Bartlett,  Bass, 
Ba-t,  Brown,  Chenault,  Collier,  Crawford, 
Doniphan,  Donnell,  Drake,  Dunn,  Frayser, 
Givens,  Gorin,  Hall  of  Randolph,  Harbin, 
Hatcher,  Hill,  Hough,  Hudgins,  Knott,  Mat- 
son,  Redd,  Sawyer,  Waller  and  Watkins --26. 

Absent — Messrs.  Broadhead,Gamble,  Moss, 
Ray  and  Sheely. 

Sick — Comingo  and  Pipkin. 

Mr.  Hall  having  received  a  majority  of  all 
the  votes  cast,  was  declared  duly  elected. 

Fourth  District — Mr.  Birch  nominated  Jas. 
H.  Moss.  There  being  no  other  nomination, 
on  motion  of  Mr.  Gantt,  Mr.  Moss  was  de- 
clared unanimously  elected. 

Fifth  District — Mr.  Phillips  nominated 
Wm.  Douglass.  Mr.  Brown  nominated  Abra- 
ham Comingo 

The  roll  having  been  called,  there  appeared 
for  Mr.  Douglass  : 

Messrs.  Allen,  Bartlett,  Birch,  Bogy,  Breck- 
inridge, Bridge,  Bush,  Calhoun,  Doniphan, 
Drake,  Eitzen,  Frayser,  Flood,  Foster,  Gantt, 
Gravely,  Hall  of  Buchanan,  Hall  of  Randolph, 
Henderson,  Hendrick,  Hitchcock,  Holmes, 
Holt,  How,  Howell,  Irwin,  Isbell,  Jackson, 
Jamison,  Johnson,  Knott,  Kidd,  Leeper,  Lin- 
ton, Long,  Marmaduke,  Marvin,  Maupin,  Mc- 
Clurg, McCormack,  McDowell,  McFerran, 
Meyer,  Morrow  Noell,  Norton,  Orr,  Phillips, 
Pomeroy,  Rankin,  Ritchey,  Ross,  Rowland, 
Scott,  Shackelford  of  Howard,  Shackelford 
of  St.  Louis,  Smith  of  Linn,  Smith  of  St. 
Louis,  Stewart,  Tindall,  Turner,  Waller,  Wat- 
kins,  Welch,  Wilson,  Woodson,  Woolfolk, 
Wnght,  Vanbuskirk,  Zimmerman  and  Mr. 
President — 71. 

For  Mr.  Comingo. — Messrs.  Bast,  Brown, 
Cayce,  Chenault,  Collier,  Crawford,  Donnell, 
Dunn,  Given*,  Gorin,  Harbin,  Hatcher,  Hill, 
Hough,  Hudgins,  Matson,  Redd,  Sawyer,  Sayre 
and  Sheelev — 20. 


Absent  :  Messrs.  Bass,  Broadhead,  Doug- 
lass, Gamble,  Moss  and  Ray. 

Sick  :  Messrs.  Comingo  and  Pipkin. 

Mr.  Douglass  having  received  a  majority  of 
all  the  votes  cast,  was  declared  duly  elected 
from  the  Fifth  Congressional  District. 

Sixth  District  :  Mr.  Morrow  nominated  Lit- 
tlebury  Hendrick  ;  there  being  no  other  nom- 
ination, on  motion  of  Mr.  Marvin,  Mr.  Hen- 
drick was  declared  unanimously  elected  dele- 
gate from  the  Sixth  Congressional  District. 

Seventh  District  :  Mr.  Hatcher  nominated 
Nathaniel  W.  Watkins. 

Mr.  Bogy   nominated  William  G.  Pomeroy. 

The  roll  having  been  called,  there  appeared 

For  Mr.  Watkins— Messrs.  Allen,  Bartlett, 
Bass,  Bast,  Birch,  Brown,  Cayce,  Chenault, 
Collier,  Crawford,  Doniphan,  Donnell,  Doug- 
lass, Drake,  Dunn,  Frayser,  Flood,  Givens, 
Gorin,  H^ibin,  Hatcher,  Hill,  Hough.  Howell, 
Hudgins,  Knott,  Marmaduke,  Matson^  McCor- 
mack, Noell,  Pomeroy,  Redd,  Ritchey,  Ross, 
Sawyer,  Sayre,   Sheeley,  Waller,  Woodson— 

For  Mr.  Pomeroy— Messrs.  Bogy,  Breckin- 
ridge, Bridge,  Bush,  Calhoun,  Eitzen,  Foster, 
Gravely,  Hall  of  Buchanan,  Hall  of  Randolph, 
Henderson,  Hendrick,  Hitchcock,  Holmes, 
Holr,  How,  Irwin,  Isbell,  Jackson,  Jamison, 
Johnson,  Kidd,  Leeper,  Linton,  Long,  Marvin, 
Maupin,  McClurg,  McDowell,  McFerran, 
Meyer,  Morrow,  Orr,  Phillips,  Rankin,  Row- 
land, Scott,  Shackelford  of  St.  Louis,  Smith 
of  Linn,  Smith  of  St.  Louis,  Stewart,  Tindall, 
Turner,  Watkins,  Welch,  Woolfolk.  Wright, 
Vanbuskirk,  Zimmerman  and  Mr.  President 
—51. 

Absent  :  Messrs.  Broadhead,  Gamble,  Moss, 
Norton,  Ray,  Shackelford  of  Howard,  and 
Wilson. 

Sick  :  Messrs.  Comingo  and  Pipkin. 

Mr.  Pomeroy  having  received  a  majority  of 
all  the  votes  cast,  was  declared  duly  elected 
delegate  from  the  Seventh  Congressional  Dis- 
trict. 

Mr.  Woolfolk,  from  the  Committee  on 
Printing,  presented  the  following  report  and 
resolution  which  were  adopted  : 

The  Committee  on  Printing  beg  leave  to  re- 
port that,  in  accordance  with  instructions,  the 
Secretary  of  the  Convention  has  had  the  print- 
ing, required  by  the  Convention,  executed  by 
George  Knapp,  &  Co.,  the  expense  for  which 
has  been   less   than   two  hundred  dollars. 

The  Committee  also  report,  that  in  accord- 
ance with  the  resolution  proposed  by  Mr.  Dunn 
on  the  9th  of  March,  and  which  was  adopted 
by  the  Convention,they  contracted  with  George 
Knapp  &  Co.,  to  print  the  proceedings  of  the 
Convention,  at  rates  not  to  exceed  five  hun- 
dred dollars,  for   five  thousand  copies   of  one 


62 


hundred  pages.  At  the  time  the  contract  was 
made,  it  was  thought  that  not  more  than  one 
hundred  pages  would  he  required  j  but  as  the 
proceedings  are  now  nearly  printed,  they  will 
extend  over  about  two  hundred  and  fifty  pages. 
As  a  book  of  reference  the  committee  deem  it 
invaluable.  The  proof  sheets  have  been  sub- 
mitted to  the  members  intereste  I,  for  revision, 
and  it  will  be  the  only  authorized  record  for 
public  use  of  the  proceedings  of  the  Conven- 
tion. 

The  committee  respectfully  ask  that  their 
action  be  endorsed  by  the  Convention,  and  that 
the  following  resolution  be  adopted  : 

Resolved,  That  the  account  of  George  Knapp 
&  Co.,  for  printing  five  thousand  copies  of  the 
proceedings  of  the  Convention,  be  audited  by 
the  Commitee  on  Accounts,  and  that  the  same 
be  considered  as  printing  for  the  Convention, 
the  payment  for  which,  is  provided  for  out  of 
the  funds  appropriated  by  the  Legislature  of 
the  State,  for  the  contingent  expenses  of  the 
Convention. 

Mr.  Welch  offered  the  following  resolution, 
which  was  rejected  : 

Resolved,  That  if  the  Legislature  of  this 
State,  shall,  at  or  about  the  time  designated  in 
the  sixth  resolution  of  the  majority  report  of 
the  Committee  on  Federal  Relations,  be  called 
to  meet,  either  by  a  resolution  of  adjournment, 
or  by  proclamation  of  the  Governor,  then,  and 
in  that  event,  the  committee  provided  for  in  the 
seventh  resolution,  i3  hereby  authorized  to 
change  the  time  and  place  of  the  meeting  of 
this  Convention,  to  such  other  time  and  phce 
as  said  committee  may  deem  most  suitable,  and 
shall  notify  each  member  of  the  time  and  place 
so  selected. 

On  motion  of  Mr.  Wright. 
Resolved,  That  the  resolution  of  this  commit- 
tee requesting  the    General  Assembly  of  this 
State  to  call  for  a  national  Convention  in  pur- 
suance of  the  provisions  of  the  Constitution  of 
the  United  States,  be  communicated   officially 
by   the   President   of    this   Convention,  to  the 
Legislature  of  this  State. 
On  motion  of  Mr.  Birch. 
Resolved,    That  of  the    bound  volumes  of  the 
proceedings  and  debates  of  this  Convention,  a 


[Attest.] 

SAM.  A.  LOWE, 

Secretary. 


copy  be  forwarded  by  the  publishers,  to  the 
Clerk  of  each   county  Court,   and  to  the  State 
Librarian,  for  preservation  in  iheir   office,  re- 
spectively ;  to  each  member  of  the  General  As- 
sembly now  in  session,  and  to  each  member  of 
the  Executive  Government,  and  Judges  of  the 
Supreme  Court,  at  Jefferson  ;  to  the  Librarian 
of  each  State   in  the    Union,  and  of  the  Con- 
gressional Library  at  Washington  ;  and  that 
after  reserving  a  copy  for  each  of  the  officers 
of  this  Convention,  and  for  the  Law  and  Mer- 
cantile Library  and  Agricultural  and  Mechan- 
ical associations,  the  remainder  shall  be   for- 
warded in  equal  and  proper   proportions  to  the 
address  of  the  members  of  this  Convention. 
On  motion  of  Mr.  Sheeley. 
Resolved,  'I  hat  the  President  transmit  a  copy 
of  the  resolutions  adopted  by  this  Convention, 
to  the  President  of  the   United   States,  and  to 
each  of  the  Governors  of  the  States,  as  well  as 
the  Governor  of  Missouri. 
On  motion  of   Mr.  Birch. 
Resolved,  That  the  thanks  of  this  Convention 
are  thus  respectfully  tendered  to   the  Mercan- 
tile Library  Association,   for  the    use  of  their 
Hall,   and   to   the    Public  Institutions  of  this 
city,  and  the  proverbial  hospitality  of  its  citi- 
izens  for  having  rendered  our  session  as  agree- 
able as  it  could  any  where  have  been. 
On  motion  of  Mr.   Brown. 
Resolved,  that  the  thanks  of  this  Convention 
are  thus  tendered  to  the  President  and  Direc- 
tors of  the  Pacific  Railroad  Company  for  their 
courtesy  to  the    members  and    officers  of  this 
Convention. 
On  motion  of  Mr.  Foster. 
Resolved,    That  J.  E.  D.   Couzens,  and  J.  P. 
Camp   be  allowed,  each,  five  dollars  per  day, 
and  G.  W.  Godford,  two  dollars  and  fifty  cents 
per.  day  for   their   services  during  the  sitting 
of  this  Convention. 

On  motion  of  Mr.  Gantt. 
Resolved,  That  the  thanks  of  this  Convention 
are  eminently  due  to  the  President  for  the  able, 
impartial,  and   courteous   discharge  of  his  ar- 
duous duties. 

On  motion  of  Mr.  Sheeley,  the  Convention 
adjourned  until  the  third  Monday  in  December 
next. 

STERLING  PRICE, 

President. 


INDEX. 


Adjournment  of  Convention  to  St.  Louis  •  •   18 
An  Act  to  provide  for  calling  a  State   Con- 
vention       3 

Amendment  to  third  resolution  of  Commit- 
tee on  Federal  Relations,  and  vote  ■  •  46 
to  fifth  resolution  of  Committee  on  Fed- 
eral Relations,  by  Mr.  Moss 40 

and  substitutes   to  fifth  resolution  of 
Committee  on  Federal  Relations,  and 

vote — rejected 41 

to  fifth  resolution  of  Committee  on  Fed- 
eral Relations,  and  vote 45 

to  fifth  resolution  of  Committee  on  Fed- 

ral  Relations,  by  Mr.  Hough 46 

to  fifth  resolution  of  Committee  on  Fed- 
eral Relations 47 

and  substitutes   to  fifth  resolution   of 
Committee  of  Federal  Relations  and 

vote  on  same 48 

to  seventh  resolution  of  Committee  on 

Federal  Relations 49 

Appointment  of  Page 19 

Assistant  Secretary,  election  of 17 

Border  States  Convention,  election  of  De- 
legates      60 

Chairman,  pro  tempore 9 

Chaplain,  appointment  of 18 

Committee  on  Accounts,  instructions  to  •  •  •  26 

on  Claims,  members  of 21 

on  Communication  from  Georgia  Com- 
missioner     22 

on   Conspiracy,  appointed 38 

on  Credentials 10 

to  contract  with  Reporters 18 

on  Federal  Relations,  and  on  Georgia 
Commissioner,  to  sit  during  session 

of  Convention 23 

on  Federal  Relations,  members  of 21 

on  Printing 22 


Committee  on  Printing  ordered  to  enquire 

into  cost  of  printing  proceedings 32 

on  Printing  to  contract  for  5000  copies 

of  proceedings 34 

to  report  on  Officers  and  Rules 10 

of  Seven,  members  elected 60 

to  wait  upon  Georgia  Commissioners  •  •   19 

Communicatian  from  Alfred  Carr,  Esq. 19 

from  C.  D.  Drake,  Esq. 18 

from  Chas.  Todd,  Esq. 44 

from  Committee  on  Federal  Relations  44 
Correspondence  between  State  Auditor  and 

Jas.  Proctor  Knott 41 

Doorkeeper,  election  of 18 

Eighth  day's  proceedings 33 

Eighteenth  day's  proceedings 50 

Eleventh  day's  proceedings 42 

Fifth  days'  proceedings 23 

First  day's  proceedings 5 

Fourth  day's  proceedings 21 

Fourteenth  day's  proceedings  •  •  •  • 45 

Fifteenth  day's  proceedings 45 

Georgia  Commissioner,  Communication  of  18 

Hour  for  meeting  of  Convention 22 

List  of  members,  to  be  printed 32 

Meeting  of  Convention  at  Jefferson  City  •  •     9 
Meeting  in  Mercantile  Library   Hall,    St. 

Louis 18 

Minority  Report  of  Committee  on  Federal 

Relations 38 

Minority  Report  of  Committee  on  Commis- 
sioner from  Georgia 57 

Names  of  the  Delegates  to  the  State  Con- 
vention      5 

Ninth  day's  proceedings 37 

Nineteenth  day's  proceedings 60 

Oath  of  office,  and  vote  on  same 12 

Officers  for  Convention,  Election  of 14 

President,  election  of 14 


64 


Printed  proceedings,  how  to  be  distributed  62 
Report    of    Committee    on    Commissioner 

from   Georgia 50 

(minority)  of  Committee  on  Commis- 
sioner from  Georgia 57 

of  Committee  on  Commissioner  from 
Georgia — made  special  order  of  day, 
for  3rd  Monday  in  December 57 

of  Committee  on  Conspiracy 42 

of  Committee  on  Credentials 11 

of  Committee  on  Federal  Relations 
(majority) 34 

of  Committee  on  Federal  Relations 
(minority) 38 

of  Committee  on  Federal  Relations — 
adopted  •  - 58 

of  Committee  on  Officers  and  Rules — 
adopted » 11 

of  Committee  on  Printing 33 

of  Committee  on  Printing — adopted-..  61 
Resolution  inviting  Col.  Doniphan  to  ad- 
dress Convention 22 

inviting  Judge  Hough  to  address  Con- 
vention   ■ 23 

inviting  Gen.  Coalter  to  address  Con- 
vention        23 

inviting  Judge  Henderson  to  address 
Convention • 23 

inviting  members  of  Legislature  to 
seats 23 

inviting  Hon.  John  Reynolds  to  address 
Convention 29 

inviting  members  of  Congress  to  ad- 
dress Convention — withdrawn 30 

(first)  of  Committee  on  Federal  Rela- 
tions— adopted 4G 

(second)  of  Committee  on  Federal  Re- 
lations— adopted 46 

(third)  of  Committee  on  Federal  Rela- 
tions— adopted 47 

(fourth)  substitute  to — adopted 47 

(fifth)  of  Committee  on  Federal  Rela- 
tions, as  amended — adopted 49 

(sixth)  of  Committee  on  Federal  Rela- 
tions—adopted     49 

(seventh)  and  amendments,  referred 
back  to  Committee  on  Federal  Rela- 
tions    57 

to  appoint  Committee  on  Federal  Re- 
lations     19 

to  print  resolutions  offered  and  referred 
to  Committee  on  Federal  Relations  •  •  22 

in  regard  to  postage  stamps  for  mem- 
bers  • 22 

on  miles  travelled  by  members — adopt- 
ed    27 


Resolution  for  delegates  to  border  States, 

and  amendments  to  same 58 

to  elect  delegates  to  Border  State  Con- 
vention— adopted 58 

to  recind  resolution  to  print  resolutions 
referred  to  Committee  on  Federal  Re- 
lations    30 

withdrawn  inviting  Hon.  Reynolds  to 
address  Convention 30 

adopted  by  Convention  to  be  sent  to 
President  of  the  United  States  and 
Governors  of  States 62 

to  print  reports  of  Committee  on  Com- 
missioner from  Georgia 57 

by  Mr.  Allen,  referred  to  Committee  on 
Federal  Relations 26 

by  Mr.  Brown  for  adjournment — 
printed  27 

by  Mr.  Breckinridge,  referred  to  Com- 
mittee on  Federal  Relations 27 

by  Mr.  Bush,  referred  to  Committee  on 
Federal  Relations 32 

by  Mr.  Calhoun,  referred  to  Committee 
on  Federal  Relations 31 

by  Mr.  Comingo,  referred  to  Commit- 
tee on  Federal  Relations 28 

by  Mr.  Dunn,  referred  to  Committee 
on  Federal  Relations •• 24 

by  Mr.  Dunn,  referred  to  Committee 
on  Federal  Relations 25 

by  Mr.  Flood,  referred  to  Committee 
on  Federal  Relations 80 

by  Mr.  Foster,  referred  to  Committee 
on  Georgia  Commissioner •  •  •  •   25 

by  Mr.  Gantt,  referred  to  Committee 
on  Georgia  Commissioner 22 

by  Mr.  Gantt,  to  seat  spectators 22 

by  Mr.  Gantt,  referred  to  Committee 
on  Federal  Relations 29 

by  Mr.  Harbin,  referred  to  Committee 
on  Federal  Relations 31 

by  Mr.  Hatcher,  referred  to  Committee 
on  Federal  Relations 23 

by  Mr.  Hendrick,  referred  to  Commit- 
tee on  Federal  Relations 24 

by  Mr.  Howell,  referred  to  Committee 
on  Federal  Relations 21 

by  Mr.  Irwin,  referred  to  Committee 
on  Federal  Relations 30 

by  Mr.  Irwin  on  vote  on  President's 
message 34 

by  Mr.  Irwin  to  adjourn  Friday,  March 
22nd— adopted 59 

by  Mr.  Deeper,  referred  to  Committee 
on  Federal  Relations 32 

by  Mr.  Long,  laid  on  table 24 


65 


Kesolution  by   Mr.   Long,   on   President's 

message 32 

by  Mr.  Linton,  referred  to  Committee 
on  Federal  Relations 24 

by  Mr.  McFerran,  referred  to  Commit- 
tee on  Federal  Relations 2G 

by  Mr.  Moss,  referred  to  Committee  on 
Federal  Relations • 28 

by  Mr.  Moss,  laid  on  table 30 

by  Mr.  Norton,  referred  to  Committee 
on  Federal  Relations 26 

by  Mr.  Orr,  referred  to  Committee  on 
Federal   Relations 26 

by  Mr.  Redd,  referred  to  Committee 
on  Federal  Relations 21 

by  Mr.  Sayre,  referred  to  Committee 
on  Federal  Relations 24 

by  Mr.  Stewart,  referred  to  Committee 
on  Federal  Relations 24  ! 

by  Mr.  Stewart,  referred  to  Committee 
on  Federal  Relations 25  I 

by  Mr.  Turner,  on  Constitution  of  the 
State  of  Missouri — tabled 25 

by  Mr.  Turner,  referred  to  Committee 
on  Federal  Relations 26 

by  Mr.  Turner,  referred  to  Committee 
on  Federal  Relations 31 

by  Mr.  Turner,  on  State  Constitution — 
rejected 33 

by  Mr.  Welch  in  regard  to  powers  of 
Legislature 22 

by  Mr.  Welch,  to  call  a  meeting  of  Con- 
vention should  the  Legislature  as- 
semble— rejected 62 


Resolution   by    Mr.    Woolfolk,  referred  to 

Committee  on  Federal  Relations 24 

by  Mr.  Zimmerman,  referred  to  Com- 
mittee on  Federal  Relations 26 

to  recind  Rule  18 25 

Roll  call 9 

Rules  for  Convention 12 

Second  day's  proceedings 10 

Secretary  pro  tempore 9 

Secretary,  election  of 15 

Sergeant-at-Arms,  election  of 21 

Sergeant-at-Arms  -pro  tempore 22 

Seventh  day's  proceedings 31 

Seventeenth  day's  proceedings 47 

Sixth  day's  proceedings 26 

Sixteenth  day's  proceedings 46 

Substitute  to  fourth  resolution  of  Committee 

on  Federal  Relations — adopted 47 

Third  day's  proceedings 18 

Tenth  day's  proceedings 41 

Twelfth  day's  proceedings > 44 

Thirteenth  day's  proceedings 44 

Thanks  of  Convention  to  Hon.  John  J.  Crit- 
tenden and  Hon.  Stephen  A.  Doug- 
las      30 

to  Gen.  Jas.  L.  Minor  •  • 18 

to  officers  of  St.  Louis  Agricultural  and 

Mechanical  Association 45 

to   Mercantile   Library  Association-  ••   62 
to  Directors  of  Pacific  Railroad  Com- 
pany    62 

to  President  of  Convention 62 

Vice  President,  election  of 14 

Withdrawal  of  federal  troops,  where  danger 

of  collision,  recommended 58 


PROCEEDINGS 


MISSOURI  STATE  CONVENTION 


Jefferson  City,  February  28,  1861. 

The  Convention  met  in  the  Court  House  at  11 
o'clock. 

On  motion  of  Judge  Orr,  Judge  Gamble  was 
called  to  act  as  Chairman  pro  tern. 

Judge  Gamble  on  taking  the  Chair  spoke  as 
follows : 

"Gentlemen  of  the  Convention:  You  have 
called  me  to  assist  in  the  permanent  organization 
of  this  body.  While  I  preside  over  you  as  tem- 
porary Chairman,  we  shall  have  nothing  to  do 
with  the  momentous  questions  which  are  finally 
to  come  before  this  tody  and  be  settled  by  its  de- 
termination. I  shall,  therefore,  in  taking  the  po- 
sition, not  allow  myself  to  dwell  upon  the  topics 
and  subjects  which  are  thus  to  be  considered  and 
determined.  One  thing  is  certain,  namely :  that 
the  interest  of  this  land,  of  the  State  of  Missouri, 
and,  in  a  large  measure,  probably,  the  liberties 
and  interests  of  the  United  States  of  America, 
may  depend  upon  the  action  of  this  body ;  and,  | 
therefore,  I  trust  that  there  shall  be  not  only  har-  | 
mony  in  its  deliberations,  but  that  spirit  which 
will  give  assurance  to  the  land  that  here  are  as- 
sembled those  who  are  wise  and  true  men .  In 
the  selection  of  the  officers  who  are  to  be  perma- 
nent, the  Convention  can  be  at  no  loss,  for  there 
are  within  it  those  who,  by  experience  and  ele- 
vated position,  are  familiar  with  the  discharge  of 
the  duties  necessary  to  facilitate  the  business  of 
the  Convention.  I  apprehend  there  will  be  no  diffi- 
culty in  that  respect,  and  that  the  Convention  will 
find  itself  able  to  select  from  its  members  those 
whose  action  as  the  presiding,  and  other  officers, 
will  meet  with  the  entire  approval  of  the  body.  I 
suppose,  gentlemen,  that  the  nomination  of  a 
temporary  Secretary  is  next  in  order." 


Mr.  Wilson  nominated  Col.  Minor,  of  Cole 
county.  The  nomination  was  concurred  in  by 
the  Convention,  and  Col.  Minor  called  to  act  as 
Secretary  pro  tern. 

On  motion  of  Judge  Sheeley,  the  Rev.  An- 
drew Monroe  was  requested  to  come  forward  and 
open  the  proceedings  with  prayer. 

Rev.  Mr.  Monroe  thereupon  came  forward,  and 
invoked  the  blessings  of  Almighty  God  in  the  fol- 
lowing   words— the   Convention    rising: 

"Almighty  God !  We  bow  down  in  Thy  presence ; 
we  present  ourselves  before  Thee,  great  Jehovah, 
God  over  all;  forever  blessed.  We  humble  our- 
selves., as  sinful  creatures.  In  thus  coming  into 
Thy  presence,  we  remember  our  origin ;  we  feel 
our  weakness  and  dependence ;  we  desire  to  come  to 
Thee,  blessed  God,  for  aid  at  this  time  of  need 
and  trouble.  Forgive  our  many  sins,  and  oh ! 
God,  forgive  the  sins  of  the  country  gensrally — 
of  our  portion  of  the  country — of  the  State  which 
we  inhabit;  blot  out  our  iniquities,  and  purge  us 
of  all  our  sins,  and  lead  us  in  paths  of  righteous- 
ness, we  entreat  Thee,  for  Thy  name's  sake ;  and 
let  Thy  blessing,  merciful  God,  rest  upon  this 
body,  now  assembled  to  consult  the  great  inter- 
ests of  the  State  and  country  generally.  Oh! 
God,  let  Thy  blessings  rest  upon  this  Convention ; 
preside  over  the  deliberations  of  the  bod3r;  and 
grant  that  wisdom,  and  prudence,  and  forbear- 
ance, and  conciliation,  may  characterize  all  their 
proceedings. 

"  Grant  Heavenly  Father,  that  Heavenly  wis- 
dom may  rest  upon  them ;  that  they  may  be  guided 
in  all  their  deliberations  to  do  the  greatest  good. 
Bless  our  national  country— bless  this  State  and 
the  States  severally;  and  grant,  Merciful  Father, 
that  we  may  be  kept  back  from  violence,  war  and 


bloodshed,  and  that  all  things  may  come  to  a 
happy  termination  for  us,  and  redound  to  the  glo- 
ry of  God.  Pour  out  upon  us  the  healthful  influ- 
ence of  Thy  spirit  of  grace  and  Heavenly  wisdom. 
Guide  us  all  by  Thy  counsel  and  save  us  finally, 
through  Christ.    Amen." 

The  Secretary  called  the  roll,  when  the  follow- 
ing gentlemen  answered  to  their  names : 

Messrs.  Allen,  Bartlett,  Bass,  Birch,  Bogy, 
Breckinridge,  Broadhead,  Bridge,  Brown,  Bush, 
Calhoun,  Casey,  Comingo,  Drake,  Dunn,  Eitzen, 
Flood,  Foster,  Gamble,  Givens,  Gorin,  Gravelly, 
Hall  of  Buchanan,  Hall  of  Randolph,  Harbin, 
Hatcher,  Hendrick,  Hitchcock,  Holmes,  Holt, 
How,  Isbell,  Jackson,  Jamison,  Kidd,  Knott,  Lin- 
ton, Long,  Marmaduke,  Marvin,  McClurg,  Mc- 
Cormack,  McDowell,  McFerran,  Meyer,  Moss, 
Morrow,  Norton,  Orr,  Philips,  Pomeroy,  Price, 
Rankin,  Ray,  Rowland,  Sawyer,  Sayre,  Scott, 
Shackelford  of  Howard,  Shackelford  of  St.  Louis, 
Sheeley,  Smith  of  Linn,  Smith  of  St.  Louis,  Tin- 
dall,  Turner,  Waller,  Watkins,  Welch,  Wilson, 
Woodson,  Woolfolk,  Wright,  Zimmerman— 73. 

Absent — Messrs.  Bast,  Chenault,  Collier, 
Crawford,  Doniphan,  Donnell,  Douglass,  Fray- 
zer,  Gantt,  Henderson,  Hill,  Hough,  Howell, 
Hudgins,  Irwin,  Johnson,  Leeper,  Matson,  Mau- 
pin,  Noell,  Pipkin,  Redd,  Ritchey,  Ross,  Stewart, 
and  Vanbuskirk — 26. 

A  quorum  declared  present. 

On  motion,  the  members  present  were  re- 
quested to  come  forward  and  hand  the  Secretary 
their  credentials. 

On  motion  of  Gen.  Watkins,  the  President 
was  instructed  to  appoint  a  Committee  of  five  to 
examine  credentials  and  report  to  the  Conven- 
tion. 

Agreed  to,  and  Messrs.  Watkins,  Birch,  W.  A. 
Hall,  Linton,  and  Orr,  appointed  as  such  Com- 
mittee. 

Mr.  Orr  moved  to  adjourn  until  to-morrow 
morning  at  10  o'clock. 

Mr.  Wilson  requested  the  gentleman  to  with- 
draw his  motion,  as  it  was  proper  to  appoint  a 
temporary  door-keepGr. 

Mr.  Orr  withdrew  his  motion. 

Mr.  Rowland  moved  that  a  Committee  of 
seven  be  appointed  to  report  on  Permanent  Offi- 
cers. 

Mr.  Welch  suggested  that  the  motion  was 
premature.  Permanent  officers  could  not  be  nom- 
inated until  after  the  Committee  on  Credentials 
had  reported. 

Mr.  Rowland  said  his  motion  was  not  to  pre- 
sent names  to  the  Convention,  but  merely  to  de- 
signate the  offices  which  it  might  be  necessary  to 
fill. 

Mr.  Broadhead  suggested  as  an  amendment  to 
the  motion,  that  the  committee  be  required  to  re- 
port rules  for  the  government  of  the  Convention. 

Amendment  accepted  by  Mr.  Rowland. 


Mr.  Rowland's  motion  was  then  put  and  car- 
ried. 

The  President  appointei  Messrs.  Rowland, 
Price,  Broadhead,  Welch,  Wilson,  Hatcher,  and 
Hendricks  as  the  Committee. 

Mr.  Pomerot  moved  that  J.  A.  Davis  be  ap- 
pointed temporary  doorkeeper.    Agreed  to. 

Mr.  Welch  moved  to  adjourn  till  10  o'clock, 
but  withdrew  his  motion  at  the  request  of  Mr. 
Birch. 

Mr.  Birch  moved  that  the  Convention  adjourn 
until  3  o'clock,  then  to  meet  in  conclave  for  the 
purpose  of  determining  whether  the  subsequent 
sessions  should  be  open  or  what  was  called  secret 
sessions.  He  said  he  had  sufficient  reasons  in  his 
own  mind  for  making  the  motion,  and  trusted  it 
would  be  agreed  to  by  common  consent. 

Several  member-;  suggested  the  hour  of  10 
o'clock  on  Friday,  instead  of  3  o'clock,  r.  m. 

Accepted  by  Mr.  Birch,  and  Convention  ad- 
journed until  10  o'clock  to-morrow  (Friday) 
morning. 


SECOND    DAY. 

Jefferson  City,  March  1,  1861. 

Met  at  10  o'clock.    Opened  with  prayer. 

The  journal  was  read  by  the  Secretary. 

Mr.  Birch  remarked  that  if  no  gentleman  de- 
sired to  amend  the  record,  he  would  move  to  ex- 
ecute the  order  of  yesterday,  in  regard  to  secret 
session. 

Mr.  Wilson.  Would  it  not  be  better  to  re- 
ceive the  credentials  of  gentlemen  who  have  ar- 
rived since  yesterday  ? 

Mr.  Watkins.  I  understand  the  members 
who  came  in  since  yesterday,  have  handed  in 
their  credentials  already. 

Mr.  Birch.  I  was  aware  of  that,  and  in  mak- 
ing the  motion  now,  to  execute  the  order  of  yes- 
terday, I  renew  the  statement  of  the  reasons 
which  actuated  me  then.  It  is  for  the  simple  pur- 
pose of  determining  in  conclave,  whether  our 
proceedings  shall  be  in  secret  session  or  conclave, 
or  open.  I  suppose  the  motion  will  scarcely  meet 
with  any  opposition,  that  being  the  sole  object. 

Mr.  Wilson.  It  occurs  to  me  that  rerhaps  it 
would  be  better  before  the  Convention  proceeds 
to  execute  the  order  for  a  secret  session,  that  we 
should  elect  our  permanent  officers.  That  having 
been  done,  the  Convention,  if  deemed  advisable, 
could  resolve  itself  into  a  secret  session,  for  the 
purpose  of  considering  the  propositions  made  by 
the  gentleman.  I  therefore  move,  if  I  can  meet 
a  second,  that  the  Convention  proceed  to  re- 
ceive the  report  of  the  Committee  on  organiza- 
tion, which  I  understand  is  ready,  and  that  then, 
if  that  report  is  approved,  the  Convention  may 
further  proceed  to  provide  itself  with  the  officers 
therein  recommended,  or  such  of  them  as  they 
think  necessary. 


3 


Mr.  Birch.  I  regret  exceedingly  as  the  gen- 
tleman from  Andrew  is  so  near  to  my  room  that 
I  had  not  conversed  with  him  more  freely,  as  to 
the  objects.  I  am  sure  it  would  have  prevented 
his  motion.  All  I  will  say  in  that  respect  is  that 
with  the  views  I  entertain  of  our  duties  here,  and 
the  hopes  I  entertain  of  the  result  of  the  delibera- 
tions of  the  Convention,  I  think  that  we  should 
commence  the  good  work  right  at  the  veiy  point 
of  electing  our  officers.  I  will  but  say  here  that 
I  came  here  in  the  spirit  of  conciliation  as  a  Mis- 
sourian,  meeting  gentlemen,  as  I  am  aware,  of 
almost  every  grade  of  opinion;  that  I  anticipate 
that  we  shall  leave  here  all  of  one  mind,  and  I 
think  that  we  should  commence  the  work  right 
at  the  starting  point.  I  will  not  be  more  specific 
in  addressing  myself  to  such  intelligence  as  this 
Convention  represents.  If  it  will  be  the  pleasure 
of  the  Convention,  however,  that  we  should  pro- 
ceed publicly,  and  forego  the  execution  of  the 
order  for  the  purpose  of  seconding  the  motion  of 
the  gentlemen  from  Andrew,  I  shall  not  complain. 
Mr.  Watkins.  On  yesterday  a  committee  of 
five  was  appointed  upon  credentials,  with  instruc- 
tions to  report  at  ten  o'cloek  this  morning.  That 
Committee  has  performed  its  duty  and  is  now  pre- 
pared to  make  its  report.  I  will  suggest  to  the 
gentlemen  if  it  would  not  be  more  proper  that 
that  report  should  come  in  first.  We  shall  then 
have  official  knowledge  of  who  are  the  members 
of  the  body,  but  until  that  report  is  received  we 
cannot  have  that  knowledge. 

The  Chair.  That  is  the  natural  order  of  pro- 
ceeding. 

Mr.  Watkins.  I  will  suggest  to  the  gentle- 
man then  to  withdraw  his  motion. 

Mr.  Birch.  I  will  do  anything  whatever  in 
courtesy  to  the  gentleman,  but  I  will  suggest  to 
the  gentleman  from  Cape  Girardeau,  that  in  or- 
der to  obtain  his  object  he  must  move  to  forego 
the  execution  of  the  order  for  secret  session. 

Mr.  Watkins.  I  would  observe  to  the  gentle- 
man that  I  am  acting  icithin  the  order.  This 
committee  was  appointed  by  the  Chair,  and  has 
orders  to  report  at  10  o'clock.  We  are  now  pre- 
pared to  make  the  report.  If  it  is  the  pleasure  of 
the  Convention  we  will  report. 

The  Chair— The  Chair  is  at  a  loss  to  know 
whether  the  motion  of  the  gentleman  from  Clin- 
ton has  been  seconded  ? 

Mr.  Birch— I  will  state  very  briefly,  that  I 
made  that  motion  merely  in  form.  I  suppose  it 
to  be  imperative  on  the  Convention  to  execute 
the  order  of  yesterday,  and  although  there  ap- 
pears to  be  a  conflicting  motion,  yet  it  was,  of 
course,  contemplated  that  we  should  hear  the  re- 
port in  conclave.  I  will  not  press  the  motion 
further,  as  I  have  no  wish,  whatever,  to  hear  my- 
self talk. 

The  Chair.  If  that  motion  is  not  pressed  the 
report  of  the  committee  will  be  in  order. 


Mr.  Watkins.  Then,  Mr.  President,  I  will 
state  that  the  special  committee  appointed  yester- 
day to  examine  credentials,  have  performed  that 
duty  and  instructed  me  to  make  the  following  re- 
port, which  I  desire  the  Secretary  to  read. 

The  Secretary  read  the  report,  which  presents 
the  same  names  as  those  contained  in  yesterday's 
dispatch. 

Mr.  Foster  moved  that  the  report  be  received, 
and  the  committee  discharged. 

Mr.  Irwin.  Before  that  report  is  acted  upon, 
I  desire  to  say  that  there  are  members  of  this 
Convention  whose  credentials  have  not  been  pre- 
sented. The  effect  of  this  motion  is  that  the 
committee  will  be  discharged,  and  cannot  here- 
after examine  credentials. 

Mr.  Watkins.  I  will  observe  that  besides  the 
evidence  which  the  Committee  on  Credentials  had 
before  them,  I  went  to  the  Secretary  of  State's  of- 
fice for  the  purpose  of  ascertaining  from  the  re- 
turns who  is  elected,  and  found  that  there  were 
counties  which  have  not  yet  been  heard  from.  So 
we  were  not  enabled  to  make  a  full  report. 

The  Chair.  The  Chair  considers  it  the  right 
of  any  gentleman  who  is  elected,  and  has  the  evi- 
dence of  his  election  with  him,  to  present  his 
credentials  now  and  be  admitted.  I  will  ask  the 
Secretary  to  perfect  the  roll  accordingly. 

Mr.  Foster's  motion  was  then  agreed  to  and 
the  Committee  discharged. 

Mr.  Rowland,  from  the  Committee  who  were 
instructed  to  designate  the  offices  of  the  Conven- 
tion and  report  rules  for  its  government  made  a 
report  which  was  read  by  the  Secretary.  The 
Committee  recommend  that  the  following  offi- 
ces be  filled:  1st,  President;  2d,  Vice  President; 
3d,  Secretary;  4th,  Assistant  Secretary;  5th, 
Door-keeper. 

Also,  that  the  rules  adopted  by  the  State  Con- 
vention assembled  in  Jefferson  City  on  the  17th 
of  November,  1845,  be  adopted  as  the  rules  of 
the  Convention,  excepting  rules  numbered  41,  42 
and  44,  and  all  but  the  following  words  of  rule 
49 :  No  member  shall  be  allowed  pay  for  any 
day  that  he  shall  be  absent  from  the  session  of 
the  Convention,  unless  prevented  by  sickness. 

Also,  that  150  copies  of  these  rules  be  printed 
for  the  use  of  the  Convention. 

Also,  that  each  delegate,  before  entering  upon 
the  discharge  of  his  duties,  be  required  to  take  an 
oath  to  support  the  Constitution  of  the  United 
States  and  of  Missouri. 

Also,  that  each  officer  of  the  Convention,  ex- 
cept the  President  and  Vice-President,  be  required 
to  take  such  an  oath,  and  besides,  to  swear  that 
they  will  not  divulge  anything  that  has  transpir- 
ed in  secret  sessions. 

Mr.  Welch  moved  that  the  report  be  adopted. 
Agreed  to. 

Mr.  Welch.  I  would  inquire  if  the  vote  taken 
on  the  adoption  of  the  report  is  considered  as  an 


adoption  of  the  rules  recommended  by  the  Com- 
mittee? If  so,  1  would  move  that  the  Hon.  Judge 
George  W.  Miller  be  requested  to  administer  the 
oaths. 

The  Chair  said  that  by  adopting  the  report  of 
the  Committee,  the  Convention  had  agreed  to  the 
rules  recommended  therein. 

Mr.  Watkins.  I  am  not  aware  that  it  has  been 
the  practice  of  Conventions  of  this  kind  to  take  an 
oath  of  this  sort.  It  strikes  me  as  a  little  singu- 
lar that  we  should  be  called  upon  to  swear  to  sup- 
port a  Constitution  which  we  may  be  called  upon 
to  alter  as  we  please.  I  think  no  such  action  was 
taken  in  the  Convention  of  1845.  I  would  inquire 
of  the  Chairman  of  the  Committee  whether  he  is 
aware  that  such  an  oath  was  taken  by  that  Con- 
vention. 

Mr-  Rowland — I  am  not  certain  about  whether 
they  swore  to  support  the  Constitution  of  Mis- 
souri or  not;  but  I  suppose,  when  we  act  under 
the  Constitution,  we  have  the  right  to  declare  our 
allegiance  to  it. 

Mr.  Broadhead — I  was  a  member  of  the  Con- 
vention, and  I  will  state  also  that  1  am  one  of 
three  members  present  who  were  members  of  the 
Convention  of  1845-46.  I  am  aware  the  journals 
of  ^hat  Convention  show  that  the  members  of 
that  body  were  qualified  and  took  their  seats,  but 
nothing  appears  on  the  journals  to  show  exactly 
what  that  qualification  was.  My  recollection  is 
that  they  took  an  oath  to  support  the  Constitution 
of  the  United  States  and  of  the  State  of  Missouri. 

I  know  the  question  was  discussed  in  that  Con- 
vention as  to  whether  that  was  an  extra  constitu- 
tional body  convened  within  the  purview  of  the 
Constitution,  and  we  came  to  the  conclusion,  I  be- 
lieve, and  it  was  the  generally  admitted  opinion 
at  that  time,  that  that  Convention,  whicn  pro- 
posed to  change  the  Constitution,  and  actually 
undertook  to  change  the  law  of  the  land,  and  to 
make  a  Constitution,  which  was  submitted  to  the 
people,  was  within  the  purview  of  the  Constitu- 
tion, and  that  we  had  a  right  to  make  such  alter- 
ations as  we  thought  proper.  It  is  true  it  did  not 
come  within  the  special  provisions  of  the 
Constitution  itself,  but  within  the  bill  of  rights 
which  authorizes  the  people  to  change  their  form 
of  government  from  time  to  time,  as  the  emergen- 
cies of  the  case  may  require.  We  took  the  ground 
that  it  was  within  the  purview  of  the  bill  of  rights, 
and  that  until  after  the  new  Constitution  was 
framed,  we  were  still  bound  by  the  Constitution 
of  the  State  of  Missouri,  and  the  United  States, 
which  every  officer  had  sworn  to  support.  That 
was  the  view  taken  by  the  Convention,  and  my 
recollection  is,  that  the  oath  was  taken  to  support 
both  Constitutions.  If  Governor  Stewart  is  pres- 
ent he  can  give  his  recollection ;  I  may  not  be  cor- 
rect. 


Mr.  Stewart.  My  recollection  is,  we  took  an 
oath  to  support  both  Constitutions.  I  recollect  I 
had  doubts  at  the  time  whether  it  was  necessary, 
and  I  have  those  doubts  to  a  certain  extent  yet, 
for  it  occurs  to  me  that,  if  this  body  can,  or  has 
the  power  to,  amend  the  Constitution,  although 
done  in  a  constitutional  manner,  yet  it  is  not  nec- 
essary to  take  an  oath  to  support  the  Constitution 
which  it  is  desired  to  alter  or  amend.  But  I  think 
the  object  of  this  Convention  was  not  only  to 
amend  the  Constitution,  but  to  disrupt  our  whole 
connection  with  the  several  States  of  the  Union 
and  Avith  the  General  Government.  My  opinion 
is,  that  we  did  take  that  oath,  and  I  believe  I  op- 
posed it  at  the  time,  and  I  can  see  no  reason  for 
it,  yet  I  don't  see  how  we  can  upset  the  Constitu- 
tion and  support  it  at  the  same  time.  [Applause 
in  the  galleries.  1 

Mr.  Birch— I  have  made  up  my  mind,  and  am 
as  ready  to  take  the  oath  as  any  man,  but  as  the 
question  has  been  raised,  I  concur  entirely  with 
the  gentleman  who  has  signified  his  reasons  for 
believing  that  that  act  which  called  us  together 
contemplated  no  oath.  I  supposed  from  the 
wording  of  that  act  that  it  was  anticipated  that 
we  might  pass  an  ordinance  of  secession  that 
would  be  extra  constitutional,  and  in  derogation 
of  the  Constitution  of  the  Union.  I  therefore  think 
the  Convention  will  conform  to  the  legislative  en- 
actment if  they  decline  to  swear  at  all.  Such  would 
comport  with  my  taste,  but  I  have  no  doubt  my 
conscientiousness  will  be  the  same  in  each  case.  I 
don't  believe  the  oath  was  ever  contemplated,  and 
I  think  would  be  criticised  and  liable  to  great 
criticism  if  we  took  an  oath. 

The  Chair.  There  is  no  proposition  before  the 
Convention.  The  discussion  has  been  made  in 
reference  to  the  resolution  which  has  been 
adopted. 

Mr.  Pomeroy.  I  move  to  reconsider  the  vote 
by  which  the  resolution  was  adopted. 

Mr.  W.  P.  Hall.  I  move  to  lav  the  motion  to 
reconsider  on  the  table. 

Mr.  Sayer.    I  call  the  ayes  and  nays. 

The  Chair.  I  believe  there  are  no  rules  for 
that  pm-pose. 

Mr1  Welch.  The  Convention  has  adopted 
certain  rules  which  require  the  roll  to  be  called. 

Mr.  "Watkins.  I  suggest  if  every  member 
has  not  the  right  to  demand  the  ayes  and  nays. 

Mr.  Welch.  The  34th  rule  which  has  been 
adopted,  declares  any  member  shall  have  the 
right  to  call  the  ayes  and  noes  on  any  question. 

The  Chair.  Not  having  read  the  rules,  was  not 
aware  of  that  fact. 

Mr.  Steavart.  Is  it  proper  to  make  a  remark 
before  the  roll  is  called?  If  so,  I  wish  to  say  I 
was  called  upon  for  an  explanation  in  reference 
to  my  opinion  concerning  that  Convention.  I 
stated  that  I  believed  Ave  Avere  compelled  to  swear 
to  support  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States 


and  of  Missouri.  I  thought  it  would  be  proper 
not  to  take  that  oath,  because  I  do  not  believe 
that  in  a  body  of  this  kind  we  are  bound  to  take 
the  oath.  I  think  it  would  be  proper  however  in 
order  that  the  people  of  the  State  may  know  that 
we  are  governed  by  the  same  rules  that  govern 
*«  Legislature  and  other  deliberative  bodies.  I 
sfcall  therefore  vote  against  a  reconsideration. 

Mr.  Pomeroy.  By  leave  of  the  Convention  I 
will  withdraw  my  motion  to  reconsider. 

Mr.  Howell.  Then  I  will  renew  it.  I  am  a 
pretty  good  Union  man,  but  I  do  not  desire  to  be 
sworn  to  passive  obedience  at  the  start.  I  am  a 
part  of  the  people  in  that  district,  here,and  I  hold 
myself  to  be  a  member  of  this  Convention,  with 
or  without  an  oath.  Suppose  I  refuse  to  take  an 
oath,  is  there  any  means  of  enforcing  it,  of  turn- 
ing me  out  of  the  Convention,  any  means  of  de- 
barring me  or  any  other  member  of  the  Conven- 
tion, from  its  privileges?  If  we  should  refuse  to 
take  the  oath,  I  hold  there  is  no  law  by  which  it 
can  be  done,  and  I  think  there  is,  therefore, 
an  impropriety  in  adopting  a  rule  which 
cannot  be  enforced.  I  therefore  renew  the  motion 
to  reconsider.  I  am  as  good  a  Union  man  as  any 
in  this  Convention,  yet  at  the  same  time  a  con- 
tingency may  arise  so  that  this  oath  would  em- 
barrass me,  there  being  no  means  of  enforcing  it 
whatever.  I  therefore  renew  the  motion  to  re- 
consider. 

Mr.  Wright.  I  shall  vote  against  a  reconsid- 
eration, sir,  and  I  will  say  a  word  or  two  in  re- 
gard to  the  value  of  this  obligation.  I  will  not 
go  into  the  question  whether  it  can  be  eniorced  or 
not,  because  independent  of  that  I  see  some  valu- 
able results  that  will  flow  from  the  application  of 
this  touch-stone  of  patriotism  to  the  minds  of  the 
delegates  of  this  body.  I  hope  no  man 
will  refuse  to  support  the  Constitution  of  the 
United  States.  I  think  this  body  is  unlimited, 
save  by  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States, 
and  the  only  objection  I  have  to  that  limitation  is 
that  it  is  not  strong  enough  to  hold  everybody  in 
the  Union.  I  was  glad  to  sec  it,  because  I  look 
upon  it  in  the  light  of  a  test  question.  If  there  is 
an  unsound  secession  spot  in  the  heart  of  any 
person,  this  oath  will  be  apt  to  feel  about  him 
and  occasion  some  flinching  when  he  is  called 
upon  to  take  an  oath  to  support  the  Constitution 
of  the  United  States.  I  was  glad  the  committee 
furnished  that  sort  of  practical  test  of  how 
far  men  had  gone  out  of  the  Union,  either  in 
imagination  or  intention.  I  am  glad  the  oppor- 
tunity has  been  presented  for  gentlemen  to  re- 
new expressions  of  unequivocal  allegianee  to  the 
Union  of  the  States.  In  regard  to  the  other  portion 
of  that  oath,  if  I  had  had  the  framing  of  the 
rules,  I  should  have  dispensed  with  it  entirely; 
but  still  I  do  not  think  there  is  any  incompatibili- 
ty in  taking  an  oath  to  support  the  Constitution 
of  this  State  by  a  body  that  may  or  might,  (I  do 


not  say  would,)  upset  the  Government,  and 
frame  a  new  Constitution  for  the  people 
of  the  State,  because  the  Constitution  of  the 
State  expressly  recognizes  that  right  in  a  plain 
provision  of  the  declaration  of  rights,  by  which 
the  people  can  change,  alter,  or  modify  their  form 
of  government  as  they  may  think  proper,  provi- 
ded they  take  a  republican  form,  and  provided 
they  do  not  hurt  something  more  sacred  still — 
the  Constitution  of  the  Union.  (Applause  in  the 
galleries.)  I  am  therefore  for  this  oath,  especial- 
ly for  the  first  and  larger  oath,  an  oath  that  in- 
volves the  widest  circle  of  patriotism,  and  without 
which  there  can  be  no  successful  patriotism  any- 
where. 

Mr.  Givexs.  lam  in  favor  of  a  reconsideration 
and  opposed  to  laying  on  the  table,  as  it  occurs 
to  me  from  the  act  calling  this  Convention  that 
the  whole  matter  is  thrown  open.  I  supposed 
the  object  of  this  Convention  was  to  consider  the 
relations  of  this  State  to  the  General  Government. 
I  perhaps  may  be  mistaken  in  regard  to  the 
matter,  but  I  have  been  laboring  under  that  im- 
pression. So  long  as  no  difficulties  had  arisen 
in  the  Government,  of  course,  if  we  had 
been  called  here  to  form  a  new  Constitution 
for  the  State  of  Missouri,  then  I  grant  that  the 
oath  to  support  the  Constitution  of  the  United 
States  would  have  been  proper;  but  when  we  are 
called  to  consider  the  relations  which  this  State 
may  sustain  towards  the  General  Government, 
relations  in  which,  in  some  events  at  least,  it 
was  contemplated  that  there  might  be  a  seve- 
rance of  the  State  from  the  General  Govern- 
ment, and  I  do  not  say  now  in  advance  that  I 
would  be  in  favor  of  such  a  project;  but  I  say 
distinctly  that  events  may  arise,  how  long  I  know 
not,  within  ten  days  perhaps,  within  a  month 
perhaps,  which  would  make  it  necessary  for  this 
State  to  dissolve  its  connection  with  the  General 
Government.  This  may  be  language  too  strong, 
but  I  make  it  on  this  preliminary  motion,  not 
that  I  am  committed  to  this  course  of  action,  but 
that  I  believe  a  state  of  ease  may  arise  during 
the  sitting  of  this  Convention,  that  we  may  be 
called  upon  to  dissolve  that  connection  which 
binds  the  State  to  the  General  Government. 
Under  that  impresion,  I  would  hesitate  to 
take  an  oath  which  no  one  is  asked  to 
take.  There  can  be  nothing  inconsistent  in 
the  position  which  I  occupy.  I  stand  here  as  a 
citizen  called  from  a  remote  part  of  the  State  to 
act  the  part  which  has  been  imposed  upon  me, 
and  I  say  there  ought  to  be  no  obligation  in 
view  of  the  circumstances  which  surround  this 
occasion,  there  ought  to  be  no  obligation  in  re- 
gard to  this  matter. 

Mr.  Wilson.  As  I  look  at  the  matter,  there 
were  two  reasons  which  actuated  those  who  vo- 
ted for  this  Convention.  Some  voted  for  it  for 
the  object,  as  I  believe,  of  disrupting  the  relations 


6 


that  now  exist  between  the  people  of  Missouri 
and  the  Government  of  the  United  States.  Others, 
I  am  persuaded,  aided  in  the  calling  of  this  Con- 
vention, for  the  purpose,  if  possible,  of  settling  all 
the  difficulties  that  have  existed  and  do  exist  be- 
tween the  people  of  Missouri,  and  the  people  of  the 
United  States  and  the  Government  thereof.  But  I 
do  not  regard  this  Convention  as  a  revolutionary 
Convention.  This  Convention  was  called  by  the 
Government  existing,  and  therefore  to  all  intents 
and  purposes,  cannot  be  revolutionary.  When- 
ever the  people  of  the  Government  desire  to  over- 
turn their  Government,  whenever  in  their  wisdom 
they  shall  deem  it  expedient  to  upset  the  Govern- 
ment under  which  they  live  by  revolutionary  effort, 
I  think  in  all  probability  they  will  not  go  to  the 
government  for  the  power  to  hold  their  Conven- 
tion, but  they  will  proceed  without  any  authority 
from  the  existing  government  to  put  the  machine- 
ry of  the  new  government  in  operation  to  super- 
sede the  old  government.  Now  I  am  ready  to 
take  the  oath,  and  I  hold  it  is  not  inconsistent 
with  any  duties  that  may  arise  in  the  discharge 
of  my  duties  as  a  member  of  this  Convention.  I 
do  not  suppose  it  is  contemplated  by  the  members 
of  this  Convention  to  meddle  with  the  State  Con- 
stitution; but  if  they  should  determine  to  do  so  it 
will  not  be  inconsistent  with  the  oath  which  they 
are  required  to  take  by  the  recommendation  of 
this  committee.  If  they  determine  to  frame  a 
new  Constitution  and  submit  it  to  the  people,  that 
act  as  contemplated  by  the  existing  Constitution 
is  not  in  violation,  and  hence  it  is  Mr.  President 
that  I  think  it  is  eminently  proper  that  the  mem- 
bers on  this  great  occasion— perhaps  the  greatest 
that  ever  existed  in  Missouri— should  show  the 
people  of  this  State,  and  of  the  whole  Union  of 
States,  that  they  are  loyal  to  law  and  order— [ap- 
plause in  the  galleries  J— and  all  the  precedents 
which  has  heretofore  sustained  our  happy  rela- 
tions, not  only  with  the  people  of  Missouri,  but 
with  the  people  of  the  United  States.  I  do  not 
hold  that,  because  we  take  this  oath  as  members 
of  this  Convention,  that  Ave  shall  submit  to  a 
wrong  from  the  General  Government  or  from  the 
government  of  the  State  of  Missouri,  or  from  any 
other  quarter.  We  swear  to  support  the  Consti- 
tution of  the  United  States  and  of  the  State  of 
Missouri,  as  they  exist  at  present.  We  say  noth- 
ing about  the  execution  of  the  laws  passed  under 
this  Constitution ;  we  do  not  take  into  considera- 
tion the  violations  of  this  Constitution  that  may 
exist,  or  that  may  hereafter  arise,  but  we  swear 
simply  to  the  fact  that  we  will  uphold  the  princi- 
ples of  the  Constitution  as  they  exist,  both  State 
and  National.     [Applause.] 

Mr.  Redd.  So  far  as  I  am  concerned,  I  think  a 
state  of  case  may  arise — I  hope  it  will  not — in 
which  this  State  will  be  driven  to  one  of  two  ex- 
tremities, to  surrender  her  institutions  or  a  sever- 


ance of  her  connection  with  the  Northern  States 
of  this  Confederacy.  [Slight  applause  in  the 
galleries.]  I  say,  taking  that  view  of  it,  I  have 
no  objection  to  taking  this  oath,  for  this  plain, 
palpable  reason,  that  I  believe  if  Missouri  is  placed 
in  that  position  and  may  thus  elect  to  sever  her 
connection  with  the  Northern  States,  that  she  is 
not  violating  the  Constitution,  but  that  she  is  ex- 
ercising an  inherent  right,  a  part  of  her  original 
sovereignty  reserved  to  her  by  that  instrument. 
But  I  know  there  are  gentlemen  who  are  for  the 
Union  as  much  as  myself,  and  ready  to  do  any- 
thing for  its  preservation,  but  yet,  when  we  are 
driven,  either  to  a  surrender  of  these  constitution- 
al rights,  or  a  severance  of  our  Union  with  the 
Confederacy,  will  go,  like  myself,  for  a  sev- 
erance of  that  Union.  They  differ  with 
me  in  this.  They  believe  the  exercise  of  that 
right  inconsistent  with  the  Constitution,  and  in 
violation  of  it,  and  for  the  reason  that  they  enter- 
tain that  view  I  am  in  tavor  of  this  motion  to 
reconsider  and  leave  them  to  act  as  their  constit- 
uents wish  them  to  act,  and  as  the  safety  of  the 
institutions  of  the  State  may  require  them  to  act. 
I  shall  therefore  support  this  motion. 

Mr.  Birch.  Would  it  be  in  order  to  renew  the 
motion  to  execute  the  order  of  yesterday  for  a  se- 
cret session.  If  it  would  be  I  think  we  have  had 
demonstrative  evidence  in  the  hissses  or  applause 
which  we  have  heard,  to  show  why  that  order 
should  be  executed. 

The  Chair.  That  depends  upon  whether  the 
mover  of  the  motion  now  pending  will  withdraw 
it. 

Mr.  Birch.  I  ask  the  gentleman  if  he  will 
withdraw  his  motion,  in  order  that  I  may  renew 
mine.  I  offer  no  vindication  for  so  doing,  except 
what  has  proceeded  around  us.  In  saying  this  I 
make  no  reflection  upon  gentlemen  in  the  gal- 
lery. I  know  what  human  feeling  is ;  but  I  think 
we  should  be  removed  from  its  influence. 

Mr.  Howell.  To  give  the  gentleman  an  op- 
portunity to  test  the  sense  of  this  Convention,  I 
will  withdraw  my  motion,  with  the  understanding 
that  I  will  renew  it. 

Mr.  Birch.  Then  I  renew  my  motion  for  the 
purpose  of  determining  whether  our  sessions  shall 
be  held  hereafter  publicly  or  privately. 

Mr.  Bogy.  I  wish  to  inquire  if  reporters  are 
to  be  excluded. 

The  Chair.  Every  person  not  an  officer  will 
be  excluded. 

Mr.  Bogy.  I  wish  to  amend  by  including  the 
reporters  in  the  House.     [Laughter.] 

A  Voice.    I  move  the  ladies  be  included,  also. 

Mr.  Birch.  I  will  remark  that  we  can  settle 
all  that  in  secret  session,  whether  we  will  exclude 
or  admit  reporters  or  ladies. 

Mr.  Welch.  I  wish  to  inquire  if  it  is  in  order, 
pending  the  calling  of  the  ayes  and  noes,  to  with- 
draw a  motion. 


The  Chair.  The  Chair  has  not  examined  the 
rules. 

Mr.  Price.  It  can  be  if  there  is  no  second  to 
the  proposition. 

Mr.  Kxott.  As  the  convention  resolved  yes- 
terday to  go  into  secret  session,  is  not  that  the 
standing  order. 

The  Chair.  The  proposition  was  made  by  the 
gentleman  from  Clinton  yesterday,  that  the  con- 
vention should  adjourn  until  10  o'clock,  this  morn- 
ing, to  meet  in  conclave  for  the  purpose  of  con- 
sidering certain  questions  that  is  whether  the  sit- 
ting of  this  convention  shall  be  secret  or  open.  One 
part  of  the  proposition  was  that  the  convention 
should  adjourn  until  to-day,  at  10  o'clock. 

The  Chair  regarded  the  object  stated  by 
the  gentleman  from  Clinton,  to  meet  in 
conclave,  as  a  suggestion  made  to  the  minds  of 
the  Convention ,  of  the  proposition  that  would  be 
met  on  this  morning  at  ten  o'clock,  and  not  as  a 
direct  motion,  and  I  submitted  the  question  to  the 
Convention  in  that  form,  but  I  find  that  the  Sec- 
retary in  recording  the  motion,  has  recorded  it  in 
the  language  of  the  gentleman  from  Clinton, 
and  not  as  understood  by  the  Chair.  The 
Chair  is  therefore  in  the  condition  of  hav- 
ing put  the  motion  without  reference  to  the 
language  employed  by  the  mover.  I  ask 
therefore,  that  the  Convention  solve  the  difficulty 
whether  the  journal  shall  be  corrected  as  un- 
derstood by  the  Chair,  or  whether  the  provisions 
of  the  motion,  there  recorded,  shall  be  enforced. 

Mr.  Sayer.  The  question  was  put  to  me  yes- 
terday, whether  we  would  adjourn  until  to-day,  at 
10  o'clock,  and  not  whether  we  should  meet  in 
conclave.  I  did  not  vote  yesterday  to  meet  here 
in  conclave  to-day,  and  I  think  it  would  be  more 
proper  if  that  word  was  stricken  from  the  journal. 
I  do  not  think  it  constituted  a  part  of  our  action 
yesterday.  If  it  is  competent,  I  move  to  strike 
out  the  word  "conclave"  in  the  journal.  I  be- 
lieve we  can  determine  in  open  session  whether 
we  shall  meet  in  secret  or  open  session. 

Mr.  Moss.  For  the  purpose  of  relieving  the 
Chair  and  shortening  debate,  I  make  a  point  of 
order.  I  contend  these  motiors  are  all  out  of 
order;  I  contend  the  motion  was  to  adjourn  to 
meet  to-day  in  conclave.  I  raise  that  question. 
The  motions  that  have  been  made  are  all  out  of 
order,  and  it  was  our  business  to  meet  in  con- 
clave, and  it  was  the  duty  of  the  Chair  to  exclude 
all  persons  not  members. 

Mr.  Watkixs.  I  think  it  is  due  to  the 
gentleman  from  Clay  to  make  a  statement. 
On  yesterday  evening,  the  gentleman  from 
Clinton  made  a  motion  to  go  into  secret 
session.  At  the  instance  of  several  gentlemen  he 
withdrew  the  motion  for  the  time  being,  to  give 
the  Committee  on  Credentials  time  to  report,  but 
said  he  would  renew  it.  The  drift  of  his  propo- 
sition was  to  go  into  secret  session.    Afterwards 


he  renewed  his  motion  in  a  different  shape,  and 
that  motion  was  that  the  Convention  adjourn  to 
ten  o'clock  this  morning,  when  we  would  go  into 
secret  session. 

Mr.  Moss.  I  merely  made  my  motion  at  the 
suggestion  of  the  Chair.  I  understood  he  desired 
an  expression  as  to  whether  we  had  adjourned  to 
meet  privately. 

Mr.  Wilson.  It  occurs  to  me  that  the  motion 
to  correct  the  journal  will  have  precedence  over 
all  other  motions. 

The  Chair.  The  Convention  then  will  regard 
the  question  before  it  as  amotion  to  correct  the 
journals,  by  striking  out  the  words,  "to  meet  in 
conclave." 

Mr.  Birch.  It  is  suggested  to  me  that  I  state 
my  motion.  I  made  the  original  motion  to  ad- 
journ until  3  o'clock,  so  that  we  could  go  into 
conclave,  and  determine  whether  we  would  have 
a  secret  session.  Some  one  suggested  10  o'clock, 
and  presently  two  or  three  others  suggested  that 
the  Committee  could  not  report  at  three 
o'clock.  For  that  reason,  the  motion  to 
adjourn  to  10  o'clock,  was  adopted,  and  I  know 
it  was  not  the  intention  of  the  Chair  to  cut  me 
out  of  my  motion  by  stating  it  in  different  lan- 
guage. I  am  willing  that  the  question  shall  be 
taken  on  amending  the  journal,  but  I  would 
suggest  that  those  who  were  not  here  yesterday 
cannot  vote  understanding^,  and  that,  therefore, 
the  question  will  be  more  directly  reached  by 
some  member  moving  to  postpone  the  subject  of 
holding  a  secret  session. 

Mr.  Moore,  it  seems  to  me  the  motion  I  made 
brings  this  question  directly  up. 

Mr.  Stewart.  In  order  to  get  at  the  matter,  I 
move  the  resolution  of  yesterday  be  postponed.  I 
do  not  think  it  necessary  that  we  should  go  into 
a  secret  session.  "We  are  met  here  as  the  repre- 
sentatives of  the  people,  upon  the  most  important 
question  that  ever  has  or  ever  will  be  gotten  up — 
a  proposition  whether  we  will  stand  by  the  Union, 
or  in  a  contingency  dissolve  our  connection  with 
it. 

The  Chair.  The  question  is  on  amending  the 
journal.  Those  who  consider  that  the  vote  of 
yesterday  was  to  meet  in  conclave  will  vote 
against  the  correction  of  the  journal,  and  those 
who  understood  that  we  were  to  meet  in  open 
session  will  vote  for  the  correction  of  the  journal. 

Mr.  Gantt.  I  suggest  that  those  who  were 
not  here  yesterday  shall  not  be  allowed  to  vote. 

Mr.  Smith.  It  is  a  matter  of  fact  that  there 
was  no  such  motion  put  to  the  Convention  as  to 
meet  in  conclave.  Now,  if  the  gentleman  had 
made  the  motion  to  adjourn  to  St.  Louis,  and  the 
Chair  had  put  the  motion  to  simply  adjourn, 
would  we  have  been  bound  to  have  adjourned? 
All  we  have  got  to  do  is  to  vote  what  the  action 
of  the  Convention  was, 


8 


The  vote  was  taken  and  the  motion  to  correct 
the  journal  was  sustained — Ayes  48,  noes  39. 

The  vote  was  then  taken  on  the  motion  to  lay 
on  the  table  the  motion  to  reconsider  the  vote  by 
which  the  resolution  requiring  the  members  to 
take  an  oath  to  support  the  Constitution  of  the 
United  States  and  the  State  of  Missouri  was 
adopted. 

The  motion  was  laid  on  the  table ;  ayes  65, 
noes  30,  as  follows : 

Ayes — Messsrs.  Allen,  Bass,  Bogy,  Breckin- 
ridge, Broadhead,  Bridge,  Busch,  Calhoun,  Cayce, 
Chenault,  Donnell,  Dunn,  Eitzen,  Flood,  Foster, 
Gamble,  Gantt,  Gravelly,  Hall  of  Buchanan,  Hall 
of  Randolph,  Harbin,  Henderson,  Hendricks, 
Hitchcock,  Holmes,  How,  Irwin,  Isbell,  Jackson, 
Jameson,  Johnson,  Kidd,  Leeper,  Linton,  Long, 
Marvin,  Maupin,  McClurg,  McCormack,  McDow- 
ell, Meyer,  Morrow,  Moss,  Nocll,  Norton,  Orr, 
Philips,  Price,  Rankin,  Ray,  Ritchey,  Rowland, 
Scott,  Shackelford  of  St.  Louis,  Smith  of  Linn, 
Smith  of  St.  Louis,  Stewart,  TinkalL  Turner, 
Welch,  Wilson,  Woolfolk,  Wright,  Van  Buskirk, 
Zimmerman — 65. 

Noes— Bartlett,  Bast,  Birch,  Brown,  Collier, 
Comingo,  Crawford,  Douglass,  Drake,  Frayser, 
Givens,  Gorin,  Hatcher,  Holt,  Howell,  Hudgins, 
Knott,  M.irmaduke,  Matson,  Pipkin,  Pomeroy, 
Redd,  Ross,  Sawyer,  Saver,  Shackelford  of  How- 
ard. Shecley,  Warren,  Watkins,  Woodson — 30. 

After  the  vote  was  announced  Mr.  Hudgins 
said,  I  desire  to  be  informed  if  it  is  obligatory  on 
members  who  are  not  willing  to  take  the  oath  if 
they  are  to  be  sworn  in.  I  understand  this  law 
calling  a  Convention,  but  I  did  not  understand  it 
as  requiring  an  oath.  I  do  not  know  but  my  duty 
as  a  member  of  the  Convention  may  require  me  to 
give  votes  that  might  come  in  conflict  with  that 
oath.  I  know  but  little  of  the  future,  and  if  this 
is  obligatory  I  should  not  like,  at  this  stage  of 
affairs,  to  take  an  oath.  I  desire  to  say  that  I 
do  not  want  it  to  be  understood  that  I 
am  in  favor  of  severing  the  relations  of  this  State 
to  the  General  Government,  but  I  know  not  what 
may  be  the  result.  I  understand  this  to  be  a  Peo- 
ple's Convention ;  I  understand  that  I  will  have 
the  right  to  ask  of  the  General  Government  a 
change  of  the  constitution  of  the  United  States, 
which  we  are  required  to  be  sworn  to  support;  for 
the  proposition  for  peace  looks  to  that  point,  that 
the  constitution  is  not  sufficient,  as  construed  by 
one  portion  of  this  confederacy,  t©  make  peace  in 
this  Union ;  to  require  members  of  the  Conven- 
tion to  take  an  oath,  is,  as  I  understand  it,  taking 
the  oath  of  a  submissionist. 

Mr.  Orr.  For  the  information  of  gentlemen, 
we  are  not  going  to  take  an  oath  because  of  any 
law  passed  by  the  Legislature,  but  because  of  a 
rule  that  has  been  adopted  this  morning  by  a 
vote  of  65  to  30. 


Mr.  Sheeley.  I  was  one  of  those  who  voted 
against  laying  on  the  table.  Twenty-five  years  ago, 
I  took  an  oath  to  support  the  Constitution  of  the 
United  States,  and  of  the  State  of  Missouri,  and 
that  oath  is  now  upon  record.  I  consider  the  first 
oath  just  as  binding,  as  though  I  were  to  take  one 
to-day,  and  should  the  event  occur  to  which  the 
gentleman  alludes,  that  war  may  be  declared  and 
the  State  of  Missouri  called  tip  on  to  seek  protection , 
or  aid  from  coercion,  I  for  one  am  ready  to  fall 
back  on  the  revolutionary  rights  of  the  fathers, 
and  afford  such  aid. 

Mr.  Price.  The  gentleman  inquires  whether 
he  would  be  bound  to  take  an  oath  under  the 
resolution.  That  resolution  is  the  lawr  of  this 
Convention,  and  binding  upon  every  member, 
but  any  member  has  the  right  to  violate  that  law. 
Yet  it  becomes  the  imperative  duty  of  the  pre- 
siding officer  to  impose  it,  if  not  by  one  way 
to  do  it  in  another.  I  am  surprised  that  the 
gentleman  from  Andrew  should  have  any 
hesitation.  If  I  recollect  aright,  it  oc- 
curs to  me  that  he  is  a  practicing  lawyer, 
and  every  lawyer  in  the  land  takes  an  oath  to  sup- 
port the  Constitution  of  the  State  and  the  United 
States.  We  are  bound  to  obey  and  support  that 
Constitution  as  long  as  it  exists.  I  have  taken  an 
oath  to  support  the  Constitution,  and  that  oath  is 
binding  upon  me  now,  yet  I  have  no  compunc- 
tions of  conscience  about  renewing  it. 

Mr.  Knott.  I  voted  against  laying  the  propo- 
sition to  reconsider  on  the  table,  because  I  con- 
ceived the  practical  question  involved  should  be 
first  considered,  and  that  is,  suppose  any  dele- 
gate here  refuses  to  take  the  oath,  we  cannot  com- 
pel him  to  do  it — are  youthen  to  disfranchise  him 
and  the  disirict  he  represents  ?  So  far  as  I  am  con- 
cerned, I  am  under  obligations  to  support  the 
Constitution  of  the  United  States  and  of  this 
State,  and,  whether  under  that  obligation  or  not, 
I  expect  to  support  those  Constitutions,  and  no 
act  of  mine  will  violate  either  one  of  them. 
I  voted  against  laying  on  the  table, 
because  I  wanted  this  other  question  settled  be- 
fore hand.  I  do  not  know  that  any  gentleman 
will  refuse,  but  we  ought  to  consider  what  to  do 
in  case  he  does. 

Mr.  Wilson.  I  do  not  see  much  dif- 
culty  in  the  whole  matter.  Every  one 
of  these  gentlemen  who  has  a  license 
to  practice  law  is  already  under  this  very 
oath.  I  took  it  some  thirty  years  ago,  and 
I  think  it  still  rests  upon  me,  but  I  have  not  the 
slightest  hesitancy  to  renew  that  oath  upon  this 
occasion  or  any  other  occasion  as  the  necessity  may 
require.  I  see  nothing  inconsistent  about  it. — 
Every  member  of  this  honorable  Convention  is 
already  under  this  oath,  because  I  see  there  are  a 
great  many  lawyers  here. 

Mr.  Hudgins.  If  the  lawyers'  license  spoken 
of  binds  me  to  support  the  Constitution,  the  ques- 


tion  presents  itself  to  every  la  <vyer,  Why  swear 
him  over  again  if  this  oath  is  the  same  as  the  oath 
he  practices  law  under?  The  action  of  this  Con- 
vention, then,  will  be  none  other  than  the  action 
between  a  lawyer  and  his  client;  then  why  swear 
him  over  again? 

A  Voice.    You  can't  swear  a  lawyer  too  hard. 

Further  discussion  here  closed  and  the  delegates 
then  came  forward  and  were  sworn  in  by  Judge 
Miller,  after  which  the  Convention  adjourned. 

AFTERNOON      SESSION*. 

Convention  re-assembled  at  3  o'clock  p.  m. 

Mr.  Sheelet  moved  that  the  Convention  now 
proceed  to  the  election  of  permanent  officers. 
Agreed  to. 

The  Chair  announced  nominations  for  Presi- 
dent to  be  in  order. 

Mr.  Broadhead  nominated  the  Hon.  Sterling 
Price. 

Mr.  Hatcher  nominated  Gen.  Nathaniel  W. 
Watkins. 

Mr.  Turner  nominated  the  Hon.  Sample  Orr. 

Mr.  Orr.  I  believe  for  about  forty  years  I 
have  had  the  presumption  that  has  enabled  me 
to  undertake  anything,  almost,  I  have  been  called 
upon  to  do;  but  upon  this  occasion,  having  never 
been  a  member  of  any  deliberative  assembly,  I 
shall  have  to  beg  the  gentleman  to  withdraw  my 
name,  after  thanking  him  kindly  for  the  partiality 
manifested  in  my  behalf. 

Mr.  Turner.  I  will  withdraw  the  name  of 
Judge  Orr  in  accordance  with  his  own  sugges- 
ion.  I  did  not  consult  the  Judge,  but  I  supposed 
the  Convention  wanted  some  good  locking  man 
for  President,  and  so  I  nominated  him.  [Laugh- 
ter.] 

No  other  nominations  being  made,  a  vote  was 
taken  with  the  following  result : 

For  General  Price.  —  Messrs.  Allen,  Bass, 
Bast,  Birch,  Bogy,  Breckinridge,  Broadhead, 
Bridge,  Brown,  Bush,  Calhoun,  Chenault,  Co- 
mingo,  Crawford,  Donnell,  Douglass,  Drake, 
Dunn,  Eitzen,  Frayser,  Flood,  Foster,  Gamble, 
Gantt,  Gravelly,  Hall  of  Buchanan,  Hall  of  Ran- 
dolph, Harbin,  Henderson,  Hendricks,  Hitchcock, 
Holmes,  How,  Irwin,  Isbell,  Jackson,  Johnson, 
Kidd,  Knott,  Linton,  Long,  Marmaduke,  Marvin, 
Matson,  Maupin,  McClurg,  McCormick,  McDow- 
ell,  Meyer,  Morrow,  Moss,  Norton,  Orr,  Phillips, 
Pomeroy,  Ray,  Redd,  Ross,  Rowland,  Sawyer, 
Scott,  Shackleford  of  Howard,  Shackelford  of 
St.  Louis,  Sheele,  Smith  of  Linn,  Smith  of  St. 
Louis,  Stewart,  Tindall,  Turner,  Walker,  Wat- 
kins,  Woolfolk,  Wright,  Vanbuskirk  and  Zim- 
merman— 75. 

For  General  Watkins  —  Messrs.  Bartlett, 
Cayce,  Collier,  Givens,  Gorin,  Hatcher,  Holt, 
Howell.  Leeper,  Noell,  Pipkin,  Price,  Rankin, 
Sayers  and  Woodson — 15. 


Hon.  Sterling  Price  having  received  a  ma- 
jority of  all  the  votes  cast,  he  was  declared  duly 
elected  President. 

Mr.  Hall,  of  Buchanan,  moved  that  a  com- 
mittee of  three  be  appointed  to  inform  Mr.  Price 
of  his  election,  and  conduct  him  to  the  chair. 
Agreed  to. 

The  President  appointed  Messrs.  Hall,  Broad- 
head  and  Chenault  as  such  committee,  who  there- 
upon conducted  Mr.  Price  to  the  chair  amid  much 
applause. 

Mr.  Price,  on  taking  the  chair,  spoke  as  fol- 
lows : 

I  thank  you,  gentlemen  of  the  Convention,  for 
the  honor  you  have  thought  proper  to  confer  upon 
me,  in  selecting  me  to  preside  over  your  delibera- 
tions. It  is  under  no  ordinary  circumstances  in 
the  history  of  our  State  and  of  the  Union,  that 
we  have  assembled  in  Convention.  It  may  re- 
quire a  life-time  to  retrace  one  false  step.  Hence 
the  necessity  of  calm,  deliberate  and  dispassionate 
thought  and  action  on  the  part  of  this  Conven- 
tion, which  cannot  be  had  without  order  and  de- 
corum in  this  body.  I  shall,  hope,  gentlemen,  to 
be  able  properly  to  apply  the  rules  which  you 
have  adopted  for  your  government,  with  your 
kind  forbearance  and  assistance.  Without  your 
assistance,  your  presiding  officer  can  accomplish 
nothing.  I  again  thank  you,  gentlemen,  for  the 
h  mor  you  have  been  pleased  to  confer  upon  me. 
[Applause.] 

The  Chair  announced  nominations  for  Vice 
President  to  be  in  order. 

Mr.  Brown  nominated  Mr.  Robert  Wilson. 

Mr.  Hall  moved  that  the  nomination  be  con- 
curred in  unanimously. 

Agreed  to,  and  Mr-  Wilson  announced  duly 
elected  Vice  President. 

Nominations  for  Secretary  being  next  in  order, 

Mr.  Rowland  nominated  Mr.  M.  R.  Cullen,  of 
St.  Louis. 

Mr.  Sawyer  nominated  S.  A.  Lowe,  of  Pettis 
county. 

Mr.  Hall  nominated  M.  J.  Thompson,  of  Bu- 
chanan county. 

Mr.  Gamble  nominated  R.  J.  Lackey  of  Jeffer- 
son City. 

Mr.  Welch  nominated  Col.  Grover  of  John- 
son county. 

Mr.  Knott  nominated  Mr.  Fox  of  Callaway 
county. 

Ballots  were  taken  with  the  following  result. 

First  Ballot— Cullen,  16;  Lowe,  20;  Thompson, 
12;  Lackey,  22;  Grover,  13;  Fox  5. 

Second  Ballot— Cullen,  15;  Lowe,  27;  Thomp- 
son, 11;  Lackey,  27;  Grover,  11;  Fox,  3. 

Names  of  Thompson  and  Fox  withdrawn. 

Third  Ballot— Cullen,  16;  Low,  35;  Lackey,  34; 
Grover,  10. 

Names  of  Cullen  and  Grover  withdrawn. 

Fourth  Ballot— Low,  51 ;  Lackey,  44. 


10 


Mr.  Low  having  received  a  majority  of  all  the 
votes  cast,  he  was  declared  duly  elscted  Secretary 
and  qualified  by  taking  the  oath. 

Nominations  for  Assistant  Secretary  being  next 
in  order,  the  following  gentlemen  were  nom- 
inated : 

By  Mr.  Knott,  James  McHenry  of  Cole 
county. 

By  Mr.  Orr.  Mr.  Shellady,  of  Camden  county. 

By  Mr.  Irwin.  Mr.  Gilstrap,  of  Macon  county. 

By  Mr.  Henderson.  R.  A.  Camel,  of  Pike 
county. 

By  Mr.  Douglass.  T.  Baknhead,  of  Coopei 
county. 

By  Mr.  Holt.  M.  Singleton,  of  Phelps  county. 

By  Mr.  Long.  D.  R.  Risley,  of  St.  Louis. 

By  Mr.  Chenault.  D.  Kerr. 

Ballots  were  taken,  with  the  following  result : 

First  Ballot :  McHenry  13,  Shellady  12,  Gilstrap 
24,  Camel  28,  Kerr  8,  Bankhead  6,  Singleton  2, 
Risley  1. 

The  names  of  Bankhead  and  Singleton  with- 
drawn. 

Second  Ballot:  McHenry  14,  Shellady  9,  Gil- 
strap 33,  Camel  33,  Kerr  4,  Risley  2. 

The  names  of  Kerr  and  Risley  withdrawn. 

Third  Ballot :  McHenry  9,  Shellady  9,  Gilstrap 
33,  Camel  42. 

Names  of  Shellady  and  McHenry  withdrawn. 

Fourth  Ballot :    Gilstrap  35;  Camel  58. 

Mr.  Camel  was  declared  duly  elected  Assis- 
tant Secretary. 

Nominations  for  Doorkeeper  being  in  order,  the 
following  gentlemen  were  nominated : 

C.  P.  Anderson,  John  E.  Davis,  Andrew  J. 
Russell,  Thomas  J.  Ferguson,  John  D.  Jackson, 
William  Vanover,  Nathaniel  Dorris. 

First  Ballot:  Anderson  28;  Davis  10;  Russell 
11;  Ferguson  12;  Jackson  8;  Vanover  16;  Dor- 
ris 8. 

Mr.  Anderson  receiving  52  votes  at  the  second 
ballot,  he  was  declared  duly  elected  Doorkeeper. 

The  President  declared  the  permanent  organi- 
zation of  the  Convention  complete. 

Mr.  Hall,  of  Randolph,  offered  the  following 
resolution : 

Resolved,  that  when  this  Convention  adiourns 
to-day,  it  will  adjourn  to  meet  in  the  Mercantile 
Library  Hall,  of  St.  Louis,  on  Monday  morning 
next  at  10  o'clock. 

Mr.  Hall,  in  explanation,  spoke  as  follows : 

I  understand,  Mr.  President,  that  the  use  of  the 
Library  Hall  has  been  tendered  us  by  the  proper 
authorities  in  St.  Louis,  and  that  it  is  very  well 
adapted  for  the  purposes  of  this  Convention.  I 
have  also  understood  that  we  have  been  tendered 
our  passage  free  to  St.  Louis  on  the  Railroad. 
This  room,  I  think  we  must  all  see,  is  very  ill 
suited  to  the  discharge  of  our  business.  I  am  in- 
formed that,  in  point  of  convenience,  comfort  to 
the  members,  and  economy,  we  shall  gain  by 


going  to  St.  Louis.    On  that  account  I  have  of- 
fered that  resolution. 

Mr.  Harbin — I  hope  that  this  resolution  will 
not  be  adopted.  There  have  been  arrangements 
made  here  at  the  cost  of  the  State  for  the  accom- 
modation of  the  members  of  this  Convention, 
and  now,  sir  to  adjourn  from  this  place  to  St. 
Louis,  or  any  other  place,  and  waste  time,  which 
is  money  to  the  State,  is  out  of  the  question.  I 
am  opposed  to  adjourning  from  this  to  anyplace, 
and,  sir,  I  move  to  lay  the  resolution  on  the  table. 

The  motion  to  table  was  put  and  lost  by  the  fol- 
lowing vote. 

For  Tabling — Messrs.  Bass,  Bast,  Bogy, Cal- 
houn, Cayce,  Chenault,  Crawford,  Douglass, 
Drake,  Frayser,  Flood,  Foster,  Giyens,  Gorin, 
Gravelly,  Harbin,  Hendricks,  Jackson,  Jamison, 
Johnson,  Knott,  McClurg,  McDowell,  Morrow, 
Orr,  Rankin,  Ray,  Ritchey,  Ross,  Sayer,  Scott, 
Shacklcford  of  Howard,  Stewart,  Waller,  Welch, 
Wilson,  Woodson,  Zimmermann. 

Against  Tabling — Messrs.  Bartlett,  Breck- 
inridge, Broadhead,  Bridge,  Brown,  Bush,  Collier, 
Comingo,  Dunn,  Eitzen,  Gantt,  Hall  of  Buchanan, 
Hall  of  Randolph,  Hatcher,  Henderson,  Hitch- 
cock, Holmes,  Holt,  How,Howell,  Hudgins,  Irwin, 
Isbell,  Kidd,  Leeper,  Linton,  Long,  Marmaduke, 
Marvin,  Matson,  Maupin,  McCormack,  Meyer, 
Moss,  Noell,  Norton,  Philipps,  Pipkin,  Pomeroy, 
Price,  Redd,  Rowland,  Sawyer,  Shackelford  of  St. 
Louis,  Sheeley,  Smith  of  Linn,  Smith  of  St.  Louis, 
Tindall,  Turner,  Watkins,  Woolfolk,  Wright  and 
Vanbuskirk. 

The  Chair.  The  question  is  now  on  the  adop- 
tion of  the  resolution. 

Mr.  Hatcher.  If  this  movement  involved 
any  additional  expense  to  the  State,  I  for  one 
should  vote  against  the  resolution,  but  as  I  un- 
derstand it  will  cost  the  State  not  one  additional 
dollar,  the  Hall  being  tendered  free  of  expense, 
and  our  passage  over  the  railroad  being  free,  I 
can  see  no  objection  to  it.  The  Convention  see 
how  we  are  situated  here.  There  are  no  desks, 
and  we  cannot  write  out  a  resolution  or  an  amend- 
ment, should  any  of  us  feel  disposed  to  do  so.  I 
will  attach  no  blame  to  the  Commissioner  of  Pub- 
lic Buildings,  as  he  has  no  doubt  done  the  best  he 
could  under  the  circumstances,  but  when  we  take 
into  consideration  the  inconvenience  of  doing 
business  here,  and  the  facilities  which  I  under- 
stand will  be  afforded  us  in  St.  Louis,  I  think  we 
are  fully  justified  in  adopting  the  resolution. 

Mr.  Knott.  I  shall  oppose  this  resolu- 
tion. I  believe  the  seat  of  Government 
is  the  proper  place  for  holding  the  Conven- 
tion. Although  we  may  be  put  to  some  in- 
convenience here,  I  think  there  are  consider- 
ations which,  if  properly  weighed,  ought  to 
induce  us  to  reject  this  resolution.  While  I  admit 
that  this  Convention  has  the  power  to  adjourn  to 
any  place  in  the  State,  it  may  see  proper,  while  I 


11 


feel  thankful  to  the  citizens  of  St.  Louis,  and  es- 
pecially the  officers  of  the  Mercantile  library  As- 
sociation, for  offering  us  their  hall.  Still,  I  must 
say  sir,  (and  gentlemen  here  are  aware  of  the  fact, 
that  there  is  a  jealousy  existing  between  St. 
Louis  and  the  country,  and  by  going  there,  this 
Convention  will  subject  itself,  unjustly  I  admit, 
but  still  will  subject  itself  to  censure  by  a  large 
portion  of  the  people  living  throughout  the  coun- 
try. I  am  furthermore  aware  that  there  are  many 
who  seek  occasion,  seek  a  pretext  to  find  fault 
with  the  action  of  the  Convention,  and  I,  for  one, 
am  not  in  favor  of  taking  any  step  that  will 
give  them  any  additional  pretext  at  all  for  saying 
anything  in  reference  to  the  action  of  the  Con- 
vention. Just  as  sure  as  we  adjourn  this  body  to 
St.  Louis,  we  will  subject  ourselves  to  this  cen- 
sure, and  I,  for  one,  rather  than  that  I  should  see 
that  action  made  a  pretext  for  any  censure  at  all, 
will  put  up  with  great  personal  inconvenience, 
and  I  hope  that  the  Convention  will  look  at  the 
matter  in  the  same  light.  As  to  the  matter  of 
cost,  I  think  it  should  not  be  taken  into  consider- 
ation at  all;  but  we  should  have  proper  regard  to 
the  manner  in  which  the  country  at  large  looks 
at  the  thing.  Now  the  country  at  large  cannot 
see  and  appreciate  the  fact  as  we  do;  it  is  impos- 
sible that  they  should ;  and  however  many  our 
inconveniences  may  be  here,  I  tell  you  the  coun- 
try cannot  see  them,  and  they  expect  us  to  hold 
our  deliberations  here. 

Mr.  Breckinridge.  I  rise  to  say  onlv  a 
word.  I  wish  expressly  to  disclaim  any  purpose 
to  take  the  smallest  part  in  any  discussion  that 
may  arise  upon  the  proposition  before  the  Con- 
vention. For  myself,  and  I  believe  I  may  say  al- 
so for  the  whole  delegation  of  which  I  have  the 
honor  to  be  a  member,  we  have  thought  it 
our  duty  scrupulously  to  abstain  from  saying  a 
word  calculated  in  any  respect  to  influence  the 
action  of  any  member  of  the  Convention  touch- 
ing this  matter  which,  as  we  all  know,  has  been 
somewhat  discussed  for  a  day  or  two.  After  say- 
ing this  much,  I  wish  simply  to  add  that  at  the  re- 
quest of  some  members  from  the  country,  I  tele- 
graphed to  St.  Louis  on  the  day  before  yesterday, 
and  had  early  yesterday  morning  an  answer  to 
this  effect,  that  I  was  requested,  as  were  the  other 
delegates  from  St.  Louis,  to  offer  to  the  Conven- 
tion the  free  use  of  either  one  of  the  halls  belong- 
ing to,  and  controlled  by  the  Mercantile  Library 
Association.  One  of  these  halls  has  a  capacity  of, 
I  believe,  from  fifteen  to  eighteen  hundred  per- 
sons, and  the  other,  I  think,  from  five  to  eight 
hundred,  being  much  larger  than  this  room.  At- 
tached to  both  are  several  large  and  commo- 
dious rooms,  which  can  be  used  for  various 
purposes,  such  as  the  assembling  of  committees, 
which  the  body  will  no  doubt  need.  I  can 
only  add  that  the  offer  is  made  in  all  sincerity; 


that  the  Mercantile  Library  Association,  I  am 
sure,  would  deem  it  a  great  honor  if  the  Conven- 
tion will  accept  their  offer;  and  that  for  myself 
and  my  associates,  and  I  may  add  also,  for  the 
whole  people  of  the  city  of  St.  Louis,  we  will  es- 
teem it  not  only  a  pleasure,  but  an  honor  to  have 
the  sesions  of  this  body  in  our  city. 

Mr.  Knott.  I  should  like  to  ask  the  gentle- 
man if  one  or  the  other  of  these  halls  is  supplied 
with  writing  desks  ? 

Mr.  Breckinridge.  I  can  say,  that,  though 
neither  of  them  is  at  this  moment  supplied  with 
desks,  still,  I  am  willing  to  be  responsible  that 
either  one  will  be  supplied  with  all  possible  con- 
veniences for  the  Convention,  and  that,  too,  with- 
out expense. 

Mr.  Knott.  I  would  make  motion  that  this 
resolution  lie  over  until  next  Monday  morning.  I 
desire  to  remark  that  I  have  understood  the  House 
of  Representatives  will  adjourn,  and  give  their 
hall  to  this  Convention,  rather  than  see  them  go 
to  St.  Louis.  [Laughter.]  I  therefore  move  to 
postpone  the  further  consideration  of  this  resolu- 
tion until  Monday. 

The  motion  to  postpone  was  put  and  lost. 

The  question  recurring  on  the  adoption  of  Mr. 
Hall's  resolution,  it  was  adopted. 

The  Chair.  I  have  a  communication  from  a 
gentleman  who  has  come  here  as  Delegate  from 
the  State  of  Georgia,  which  I  desire  to  lay  before 
the  Convention .     [Cries  of  "Read!  read!"] 

The  Secretary  read  the  communication,  in  which 
Mr.  Luther  I.  Glenn  announces  himself  as  a  Com- 
missioner to  the  Missouri  State  Convention  from 
the  Georgia  Convention,  and  desires  the  Conven- 
tion to  designate  the  manner  in  which  he  is  to 
discharge  the  duties  devolved  upon  him.  The 
communication  was  accompanied  with  the  follow- 
ing certificate  from  the  officers  of  the  Georgia 
State  Convention. 

State  of  Georgia— Whereas :  The  people  of 
Georgia  in  Convention  assembled,  having  autho- 
rized the  appointment  of  a  Commissioner  to  the 
States  of  Delaware,  Maryland,  Virginia,  Ten- 
nessee, North  Carolina,  Kentucky  and  Missouri, 
to  present  to  the  Legislatures  or  Conventions,  or 
in  the  event  neither  shall  be  in  session,  to  the 
Governors  of  said  States,  the  ordinance  of  the 
secession  of  Georgia,  and  to  invite  their  co-opera- 
tion with  her  and  other  seceding  States  in  the  for- 
mation of  a  Southern  Confederacy :  Be  it  there- 
fore known  that  I,  the  President  of  said  Conven- 
tion, do  hereby  appoint  Luther  I.  Glenn  as  Com- 
missioner to  the  State  of  Missouri,  with  authority 
then  and  there  to  act,  in  conformity  to  said  reso- 
lution. 

In  witness  whereof,  I,  George  W.  Crawford, 
have  hereto  set  my  hand  this  29th  day  of  Jan- 
uary, 1861.         GEO.  W.  CRAWFORD,  Pres. 

Attest:    A.  R.  Lamar,  Secretary. 


12 


Mr.  Hall.  I  understand  that  communication 
to  suggest  some  very  important  considerations.  I 
do  not  know  what  course  to  pursue  in  regard  to 
it,  except  to  lay  it  on  the  table,  so  that  we  can 
take  it  up  and  consider  it  next  week.  I  move  to 
lay  it  on  the  table,  and  that  it  be  printed  for  the 
use  of  the  Convention. 

Mr.  Sheeley.  Would  it  not  be  well  to  add  that 
the  Commissioner  be  requested  to  address  the 
Convention  ?     [Cries  of  no !  no !] 

Mr  Orr.  Mr.  President,  I  beg  leave  to  say  that 
we  will  do  our  own  addressing  here,  if  they  will 
let  us.  [Laughter.] 

Mr.  Hall's  motion  was  then  put  and  carried. 

On  motion  of  Mr.  Wilson,  the  Rev.  Andrew 
Monroe  was  requested  to  act  as  the  Chaplain  of 
the  Convention. 

Mr.  Wilson  offered  the  following  resolution, 
which  was  ordered  to  lay  over  informally : 

Resolved,  That  a  Committee  of  three  be  ap- 
pointed to  contract  with  two  persons  duly  quali- 
fied to  report  the  debates  and  proceedings  of  the 
Convention. 

Mr.  Birch  offered  the  following  resolution, 
which  was  adopted. 

Resolved,  That  the  thanks  of  this  Convention 
are  due  to  Gen.  James  Minor,  for  his  courteous 
compliance  with  its  request  to  act  as  Secretary 
pro  tern.,  and  for  the  prompt  and  able  manner  in 
which  he  has  discharged  that  duty. 

Mr.  Welch.  The  Convention,  in  opposition  to 
my  vote  upon  that  question,  has  determined  to 
adjourn  to  St.  Louis.  The  resolution,  I  believe, 
fixes  the  hour  at  10  o'clock,  on  Monday  morning, 
but  as  we  learn  from  the  gentleman  from  St. 
Louis  that  the  Hall  is  not  ready  for  the  Conven- 
tion, and  as  it  cannot,  perhaps,  be  ready  before 
Tuesday,  I  would  move  a  reconsideration  in  order 
to  amend  it. 

Mr.  Hall  moved  that  the  Convention  now  ad- 
j  ourn. 

The  motion  to  adjourn  was  put  and  carried. 

Convention  declared  adjourned  to  St.  Louis,  to 
meet  again  on  Monday  morning,  at  10  o'clock. 


THIRD    DAY. 

St.  Louis,  March  4th,  1861. 

Met  at  12  1-2  o'clock. 

Mr.  President  Price  in  the  Chair. 

Prayer  by  the  Chaplain,  Rev.  Mr.  Monroe. 

Journal  of  Friday  read  and  approved. 

Mr.  Gamble.  I  desire  to  offer  the  following 
resolutions : 

Resolved,  That  a  committee  of  seven  be  ap- 
pointed, to  be  called  the  Committee  on  Federal 
Relations,  who  shall  consider  and  report  on  the 
relations  now  existing  between  the  Governmen  t 
of  the  United  States,  the  government  of  the  peo- 


ple of  the  different  States  and  the  government  of 
the  people  of  this  State. 

Resolved,  That  all  propositions  and  resolutions 
that  may  be  moved  by  any  member  of  the  Con- 
vention, touching  the  relations  of  Missouri  with 
the  Federal  Government,  shall  be  referred  to  the 
Committee  on  Federal  Relations. 

Mr.  Birch.  In  view  of  the  attaining  the  same 
object  contemplated  by  the  resolutions,  I  had  pre- 
pared a  resolution  at  Jefferson  Cit3r,  which  I  now 
offer  as  a  substitute  for  the  gentleman's  resolu- 
tions : 

Ordered,  That  a  Committee  be  appointed  to  take 
into  consideration  the  relations  between  the  Gov- 
ernment of  the  United  States,  and  the  people  of 
the  Government  of  the  different  States,  and  the 
Government  pf  the  State  of  Missouri,  and  to  report 
to  this  Convention  such  exposition  and  address, 
as  shall  properly  denote  the  views  and  opinions  of 
those  who  look  to  the  amicable  restoration  of  the 
Federal  Union,  upon  such  adjustment  of  the  past, 
and  such  guarantees  of  the  future  as  shall  render 
it  eternal,  permanent  and  enduring. 

Mr.  Birch.  I  will  say  at  this  time,  in  defense 
of  my  proposition,  that  with  all  proper  respect  to 
the  mover  of  the  previous  resolution,  we  may  as 
well  come  to  the  point  set  forth  in  my  res- 
olution, so  that  we  may  act  expeditiously 
and  understandingly.  I  suppose  the  words  of 
my  resolution  need  scarcely  any  explana- 
nation.  I  wrote  it,  supposing  it  would  meet  most 
probably  the  views  of  a  majority  of  this  entire 
Convention,  and  might  go  out  as  a  glad  sound 
through  Missouri.  I  will  add  no  more  in  view  of 
the  fact  that  we  should  decide  at  once. 

Mr.  Gamble.  It  will  be  perceived  in  reading 
the  original  resolution,  and  the  substitute  which 
is  offered,  that  the  original  resolution  comprehends 
the  duty  of  considering  and  reporting  on  the  rela- 
tions between  the  Government  of  the  United 
States,  and  the  government  of  the  people  of  this 
State.  The  substitute  proposes  simply  to  direct 
the  committee  that  it  proposes  to  have  appointed 
to  report  an  address. 

I  imagine  that  the  first  resolution,  which  I  had 
the  honor  of  offering  to  the  Convention,  compre- 
hends all  that  is  in  the  substitute,  and  a  great  deal 
more.  This  is  a  committee  having  power  to  report 
precisely  such  an  address  as  the  substitute 
contemplates,  and  to  make  any  other  re- 
port that  the  relations  between  the  United 
States,  and  the  people  and  the  Govern- 
ment of  this  State  may  require.  The  second 
resolution  is  designed  to  create  a  standing  body  to 
which  shall  be  referred  all  the  propositions  that 
may  be  suggested  by  gentlemen  in  relation  to  our 
Federal  relations.  This  is  the  course  adopted  in 
the  Virginia  Convention.  I  think  there  is,  in  re- 
ality, no  necessity  for  the  substitute,  except  as  it 
affords  direction. 


13 


Mr.  Knott.  I  offer  the  following  as  an  amend- 
ment to  the  substitute :  Amend  by  adding  "  and 
all  propositions  and  resolutions  involving  the  rela- 
tions of  this  State  to  the  General  Government  and 
to  the  other  States  of  this  Confederacy  shall  be 
referred  to  said  committee." 
The  amendment  was  rejected,  40  to  43. 
Mr.  Birch.  If  it  be  in  order,  inasmuch  as  the 
substitute  has  been  rejected,  I  will  offer  my  reso- 
lution as  a  substitute  for  the  first  resolution  offered 
by  the  gentleman  from  St.  Louis.  I  am  willing 
to  vote  for  the  adoption  of  the  resolution 
offered  by  the  gentleman  from  St.  Louis. 
And  now,  I  wish  to  say,  that  I  merely  desire 
the  sense  of  this  Convention  at  the  start,  whether 
they  desire  this  mode  of  adopting  such  a  meas- 
ure as  will  look  to  the  amicable  preservation  of 
this  Federal  Union,  as  contemplated  by  the  lan- 
guage of  my  resolution.  I  hope  my  resolution 
will  be  adopted,  as  it  will  test  the  sense  of  the 
Convention  and  economize  time. 

The  vote  was  taken,  and  the  substitute  of  Mr. 
Birch  disagreed  to. 

Mr.  Gantt.  I  move  to  amend  the  first  reso- 
lution by  inserting  "13,"  in  place  of  "7."  The 
object  of  the  amendment  requires  explanation. 
In  appointing  such  a  committee,  I  think  it  is  de- 
sirable that  it  should  be  composed  of  as  large 
a  number  of  persons  as  is  consistent  with  the 
dispatch  of  business. 

Mr.  Ritchie.  I  move  as  a  substitute  for  the 
amendment,  to  strike  out  thirteen  and  insert,  one 
from  each  Senatorial  District,  to  be  agreed  upon 
by  the  delegation  from  each  district.    Lost. 

The  amendment  offered  by  Mr.  Gantt  was 
then  agreed  to,  and  the  resolutions  adopted. 

The  President  laid  before  the  Convention  let- 
ters from  Charles  D.  Drake,  Esq.,  President  of  the 
Law  Library,  and  Alfred  Carr,  Secretary  of  the 
Mercantile  Library  Association,  inviting  the  mem- 
bers of  the  Convention  to  visit  each  Library  dur- 
ing the  session  of  the  Convention. 

A  resolution  appointing  Wm.  M.  Burris,  as 
page,  was  taken  up  and  adopted. 

Mr.  Long.  I  understand  there  are  many 
ladies  who  desire  to  be  present  during  the  session 
of  the  Convention,  and  as  there  are  a  number  of 
vacant  seats  inside  of  the  bar,  I  offer  the  following 
resolution ; 

Resolved,  That  the  vacant  seats  inside  the  bar 
be  tendered  to  the  ladies  who  may  desire  to  attend 
the  Convention.  Adopted. 
Mr.  Pomeroy.  I  offer  the  following: 
Resolved,  That  a  committee  of  three  be  ap- 
pointed to  wait  upon  the  Hon.  Luther  J.  Glenn, 
Commissioner  from  Georgia,  and  invite  him  to 
occupy  a  seat  within  the  bar;  and,  also,  to  request 
him  to  signify  his  convenience  as  to  when  he  can 
communicate  with  the  Convention. 

Mr.  Wright.  I  offer  the  following  as  a  substi- 
tute : 


Resolved,  That  a  committee  of  three  be  ap- 
pointed by  the  Chair,  to  take  into  consideration 
the  communication  received  from  the  Hon.  L.  J. 
Glenn,  Commissioner  from  our  sister  State  of 
Georgia,  and  report  to  this  body  what  action  shall 
be  taken  thereon. 

Mr.  Redd.  I  offer  a  substitute  to  the  substi- 
tute: 

Resolved,  That  a  committee  be  appointed  to 
wait  upon  the  Commissioner  accredited  to  this 
State  by  the  State  of  Georgia,  and  inform  him 
that  this  Convention  will  receive  him  at  1  o'clock, 
this  day,  and  hear  what  he  ma)r  choose  to  com- 
municate on  the  subject  of  his  mission. 

I  wish  to  state  my  reasons  for  offering  this,  Mr. 
President :  I  understand  that  the  Georgia  Conven- 
tion assembles  on  Tuesday  next;  and  it  is  the  de- 
sire of  Mr.  Glenn  to  be  present;  and  if  the  State 
of  Missouri  intends  to  extend  to  him  that  courte- 
sy which  every  sovereign  State  owes  to  itself,  in 
the  reception  of  a  Commissioner  accredited  by 
another  State,  it  ought  to  do  it  now,  for  the  reason 
that  I  have  stated.  He  will  be  unable  to  remain 
with  us  the  term,  as  I  have  been  informed  he  in- 
tends to  leave  on  the  cars,  this  evening. 

Mr.  Sayer.    I  have  a  resolution  which  I  desire 
to  offer,  with  the  hope  that  it  may  be  accepted  by 
the  gentlemen  from  Marion. 
The  Chair.    It  is  not  in  order. 
Mr.  Sayer.    I  will  read  it  for  information. 
Resolved,    That  the  Commissioner  from  the 
State  of  Georgia  be  invited  to  a  seat  within  the 
bar  of  the  house,  and  that  the  Convention  desig- 
nate this  evening  at  7  1-2  o'clock,  in  this  Hall,  as 
a  fit  time  and  place  for  the  duties  specified  in  his 
communication,  and  that  a  committee  be  appoint- 
ed to  execute  the  foregoing  resolution. 

Mr.  Broadhead.  I  do  not  wrant  to  consume 
any  unnecessary  time  on  a  point  of  order,  but  I 
submit  that  the  proposition  of  the  gentleman  from 
Marion  (Mr.  Redd)  is  not  in  order.  The  gentle- 
man from  St.  Louis  offered  a  substitute  for  the 
resolution.  The  gentleman  from  Marion  offered  a 
substitute  for  the  substitute.  According  to  my 
recollection  of  the  rules  of  parliamentary  law,  this 
is  out  of  order,  for  it  simply  destroys  the  original 
proposition. 

The  Chair.  The  gentleman  certainly  has  the 
right  to  introduce  an  amendment  to  the  substi- 
tute and  strike  out  all  after  the  word  "resolved" 
and  insert  the  following. 

Mr.  Broadhead.  Of  course,  sir,  I  do  not  ques- 
tion the  right  to  amend  the  substitute. 

The  Chair.  The  gentleman  desires  to  amend 
the  substitute.  I  stated  the  question  erroneously, 
I  confess,  sir. 

Mr.  Doniphan.  I  desire  to  know  whether  the 
gentleman  from  Marion  is  willing  to  accept  the 
time  as  suggested — whether  seven  o'clock  this 
evening  will  be  acceptable  to  Mr.  Glenn,  and 
whether  he  desires  to  leave  to-morrow. 


14 


Mr.  Redd.  I  will  state  that  I  have  had  no 
communication  with  Mr.  Glenn  on  that  subject, 
but  I  have  been  informed  that  he  desires  to  leave 
on  the  evening  train. 

Mr.  Doxiphax.  This  Convention  has  been 
called,  not  for  anything  in  Missouri,  not  in  rela- 
tion to  our  own  domestic  condition,  but  called  in 
view  of  the  circumstances  that  surround  us  in 
this  Union,  in  view  of  the  rapid  disintegration  of 
this  Government,  to  see  if  that  cannot  be  arrested  ; 
and  one  of  the  means  to  arrest  this  disintegra- 
tion, is  to  restore  back  the  seceded  States,  and 
produce  the  harmony  and  homogeneousness  that 
existed  six  months  ago.  This  Ave  can  only  do  by 
according  sympathy  with  the  South.  I  do  not 
agree  with  the  doctrines  of  secession.  I  am  far 
from  being  a  secessionist,  but  if  they  come  back, 
it  will  only  be  through  fraternal  feeling,  cour- 
tesy, kindness,  and  respect.  We  are  standing 
here  between  the  North  and  the  South  as  media- 
tors, and  as  mediators,  we  cannot  reject  the  pro- 
position sent  here  by  the  State  of  Georgia,  desig- 
nating herself  only  as  the  State  of  Georgia, 
and  sending  her  Commissioner  to  us;  and 
the  sooner  we  act  upon  this  proposition,  the  bet- 
ter it  will  be  for  the  purposes  of  harmony  and 
Union.  Mr.  Glenn  can  say  nothing  but  what  ev- 
ery man  can  weigh  and  consider.  I  have  been  at 
Washington,  where  I  have  heard  everything  from 
Abolitionism  to  Secessionism,  for  the  last  forty 
days,  and  no  man,  who  is  a  man,  and  acting  here 
in  a  manly  way,  but  is  willing,  I  think,  to  hear 
what  can  be  said.  I  am,  therefore,  for  the  origin- 
al proposition,  and  hope  that  the  hour  of  12,  to- 
day, will  be  designated  as  the  time  to  hear  him. 

Mr.  Wilsox — I  desire  to  vote  for  a  resolution 
that  will  suit  the  gentleman's  convenience,  and  if 
12  o'clock  will  accommodate  him,  I  am  in  favor 
of  agreeiug  to  that  hour. 

The  Chair.  Does  the  gentleman  accept  of  the 
amendment  ? 

Mr.  Redd.  I  accept. 

Mr.  Pomeroy.  I  will  state  that  while  at  Jeffer- 
son City,  I  roomed  with  Mr.  Glenn,  and  con- 
versed with  him  as  to  the  time  when  he  could  ad- 
dress the  convention.  He  designated  that  two 
o'clock  to-day  would  suit  him  the  best.  I  have 
introduced  a  resolution. 

The  Chair.  Mr.  Glenn  informed  me  at  8  o'clock 
last  night  that  he  preferred  12  o'clock  to-day. 

Mr.  Pomeroy.  Then  I  have  nothing  further  to 
say. 

Mr.  Orr.  I  am  as  able  to  withstand  the  ar- 
guments of  a  gentleman  from  Georgia,  or  an 
abolitionist  from  the  North,  as  any  gentleman 
here,  but  I  am  here  representing  in  part  a 
district  composed  of  a  people  who  are  as  liberal 
and  as  virtuous  and  as  hospitable  to  strangers,  as 
any  other  gentleman  that  is  here  to-day.  I  am  also 
here  to  discharge  the  duties  that  I  have  voluntarily 
placed  myself  under  in  relation  to  the  oath  I  took 


the  other  day.  I  have  taken  an  oath  that  I  will 
support  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States,  and 
of  the  State  of  Missouri.  I  hold  in  my  hand  here 
a  communication  from  Mr.  Glenn,  in  which  he 
says  the  people  of  Georgia,  in  Com^ention 
assembled,  appointed  commissioners  to  sev- 
eral States  now  in  this  Union,  for  the  purpose 
of  forming  a  Southern  Confederacy.  Now, 
from  his  communication  I  understand  the 
mission  of  this  gentleman  to  be  to  ask  us  to  vio- 
late the  oaths  we  have  voluntarily  taken — to  ask 
us  to  co-operate  with  the  Southern  seceding 
States  in  doing — what  ?  In  perpetuating  the  bless- 
ings of  this  Government?  No,  sir;  but  to  aid  in 
tearing  to  pieces  the  best  Government  the  sun  has 
ever  shone  upon.  He  is  here  to-day,  and  called 
an  ambassador  by  some.  By  others  a  commis- 
sioner. If  he  is  an  ambassador  he  has  missed  the 
right  city.  He  should  have  gone  to  Washington. 
If  he  is  here  as  a  commissioner  from  a  sister 
State,  then  the  oath  we  have  taken  forbids  that 
we  should  form  an  alliance  with  any  other  State 
in  the  Confederacy.  Therefore,  I  shall  oppose, 
for  one,  hearing  this  gentleman  in  Convention  at 
all.  I  am  willing  to  hear  the  gentleman,  and  treat 
him  with  all  the  respect  that  a  citizen  of  a  State 
that  has  long  acted  with  us  demands.  Now,  I 
am  asked  by  some  gentlemen,  "Would  you  be  so 
discourteous  as  to  refuse  to  allow  a  citizen  of 
another  State  to  enter  your  house  ?"  I  say  the 
citizen  of  a  sister  State,  whether  born  in  this  or  in 
a  foreign  land,  who  comes  to  my  house  in  the 
image  of  his  God,  and  I,  not  knowing  anything  of 
his  intentions,  the  latch-string  will  always  hang 
out  for  him,  and  he  can  come  in;  but  if  he  comes 
to  my  house,  and  sends  in  a  communication  which 
shoAvs  to  me  that  he  intends  to  break  up  the 
peace  of  my  family,  he  won't  come  in  if  I  can 
help  it.  [Loud  cheering  outside  the  bar,  and  a 
few  hisses.] 

The  Chair.  (Rapping  loudly  Avith  his  ham- 
mer.) I  will  have  the  lobby  cleared  if  there  is  any 
more  cheering. 

Mr.  Orr.  I  hope  no  demonstrations  Avill  be 
made  on  one  side  or  the  other.  We  stand  here 
probably  in  the  most  eventful  day  that  has  ever 
been  known  in  our  history.  EArents  Avill  date  from 
this  day  Avhich  Avill  long  be  remembered.  To-day 
the  inaugural  address  of  Abraham  Lincoln  will 
be  delivered,  and  much  of  the  weal  or  A\roe  of  this 
nation  depends  on  that  address  to-day;  and  in  all 
probability  the  action  we  may  take  during  the 
next  hour  Avill  not  only  seal  the  destinies 
of  Missouri,  but  blight  the  prospects  of  civiliza- 
tion. We  stand  here  on  the  banks  of  the  great- 
est river  in  the  world,  and  a  river  I  never  will  con- 
sent to  have  cut  in  twain  by  this  government. 
We  stand  here  to-day,  in  the  midst  of  a  city  that 
will  one  day  be  the  great  commercial  and  manu- 
facturing city  of  civilization,  and  I  am  unwilling 
to  do  anything  which  will  blast  its  progress  in 


15 


the  future.  Now  in  regard  to  this  gentleman  from 
Georgia,  I  am  willing  to  do  what  is  right.  I  in- 
tend to  vote  against  hearing  this  gentleman  make 
a  speech  in  our  body,  because  I  believe  I  am 
right,  and  that  in  so  doing  I  am  not  acting  dis- 
courteously. I  do  not  believe  the  district  I  rep- 
resent on  thin  floor  would  have  ever  sent  their 
representatives  here,  if  they  had  declared  to  the 
people  when  before  them  as  candidates,  that 
they  were  coming  to  receive  a  proposition  from 
seceding  States,  in  order  to  go  out  and  form  a 
Southern  Confederacy.  I  do  not  believe,  if  they 
had  told  the  people  that  they  were  coming  here  to 
haul  down  the  stars  and  stripes  and  run  up  the 
Palmetto  flag,  that  they  intended  to  swap  the 
American  eagle  for  the  pelican,  that  they  had  de- 
termined  to  barter  off  "  Yankee  Doodle"  for  the 
African  song  "  Dixie"— I  do  not  believe,  if  they 
had  done  this,  that  a  solitary  individual  would 
have  been  elected.  Then,  Mr.  President,  I  shall 
vote  against  receiving  this  commissioner 
from  Georgia,  or  from  any  State  whatev- 
er. We  are  here — for  what  purpose  ?  Not  for 
secession — not  for  the  purpose  of  tearing 
up  this  Government,  because  the  people  that 
have  elected  us  have  given,  I  don't  know 
what  majority,  but  Mr.  Vest  says  in  his  speech 
a  majority  of  80 ,000,  for  the  Union.  I  am  not 
fearful  this  body  is  going  to  be  influenced  by  the 
gentleman  from  Georgia,  or  any  gentleman  that 
may  come  from  South  Carolina,  Florida,  or  any 
of  the  seceding  States,  or  even  from  Great  Brit- 
ain, which,  I  believe,  seceded  seventy- five  or 
eighty  years  ago.  Then  I  am  not  afraid  this 
body  is  going  to  vote  a  secession  ordinance,  for  if 
they  do,  the  people  of  Missouri  will  vote  it  down. 
Without  occupying  further  time,  but  acting  in 
view  of  the  responsibility  resting  upon  me,  I 
shall  vote  against  receiving  this  Commission- 
er. I  am  willing  he  shall  come  here,  and  I  am 
perfectly  willing  to  adjourn  and  hear  him  speak, 
but  if  we  invite  a  gentleman  from  a  seceded  State 
to  address  us,  who  asks  this  Convention  to  assist 
in  breaking  up  this  Union  and  form  a  Southern 
Confederacy,  I  shall  vote  against  it,  whether  any 
other  gentleman  does  so  or  not. 

Mr.  Smith,  of  St.  Louis.  I  think  the  practical 
way  to  get  at  this  matter  will  be  to  lay  the  sub- 
stitute on  the  table,  until  we  reach  the  substitute 
we  are  willing  to  vote  for,  if  we  can  get  at  it. 

The  Chair.— I  would  remark  to  the  gentleman 
that  we  will  not  be  able  to  get  at  it  in  that  way 
as  the  propositions  will  all  go  together. 

Mr.  Smith— I  shall  move  to  lay  them  all  on  the 
table  except  Mr.  Wright's. 

The  Chair— Gentlemen  cannot  do  that. 

Mr.  Smith — I  have  not  made  the  motion.  I 
agree  with  the  last  speaker,  that  in  the  first  place 
this  Convention  has  no  right  to  hear  this  Com- 
missioner at  all,  as  a  Convention,  because  he 
has   avowed     what   he   intends    to    say    here, 


and  we  are  not  here  for  the  purpose 
of  listening  to  arguments  in  favor  of  dissolving 
this  Union  and  joining  any  other  Confederacy. 
While  I  am  up,  I  wish,  although  it  may  not  be 
strictly  in  order,  but  I  am  following  the  example 
of  the  House  of  Representatives  last  Saturday, 
when  a  gentleman  was  permitted  to  speak  on  this 
very  subject  that  I  now  wish  to  speak  upon; 
and,  with  such  a  precedent  before  me,  I  may  be 
permitted  to  say  a  few  words  in  regard  to  the  re- 
moval of  this  Convention  from  Jefferson  City. 

The  Chair.  I  will  remark  to  the  gentleman 
he  is  not  in  order;  I  hope  no  gentleman  feels  in- 
clined to  throw  mud  at  any  gentleman  belonging 
to  the  General  Assembly.     [Laughter.] 

Mr.  Smith.  I  bow  to  the  decision  of  the  Chair, 
but  I  thought  that  a  little  answer  to  Mr.  Vest 
would  be  allowed. 

The  Chair.    I  could  not  allow  it. 

Mr.  Smith.  I  bow  to  the  decision  of  the  Chair. 
I  for  one  protest  against  receiving  that  man  in  any 
shape  whatever.  But  I  am  perfectly  willing  that 
the  method  proposed  by  the  gentleman  from  St. 
Louis  (Mr.  Wright)  should  be  adopted,  and  I 
think  it  as  respectful  as  could  be  adopted.  I  do 
not  see  what  better  can  be  done,  and  that  is  the 
course  I  advocate— appoint  a  committee  to  con- 
sider and  deliberate  upon  the  subject,  and  report. 
It  has  been  suggested  by  one  gentleman  that  we 
should  receive  this  gentleman,  and  then  go  on 
with  our  business.  I  propose  that  we  go  on  with 
our  business  first.  That  is  what  we  come  here  to 
do,  and  not  to  receive  ambassadors  from  foreign 
States  or  from  States  in  the  Union  even.  If  I  am 
in  order,  I  move  to  lay  the  last  substitute  on  the 
table. 

The  Chair.  That  of  course  takes  the  whole 
subject, 

Mr.  Smith.  Well  then  I  move  to  lay  the 
whole  subject  on  the  table. 

The  Chair.  The  better  plan  would  be  to  take 
a  vote  on  the  amendment — either  to  vote  it  down 
or  adopt  it.  If  it  is  not  adopted,  then  Mr. 
Wright's  will  be  in  order. 

Mr.  Smith.  In  the  spirit  of  my  remarks  that 
we  should  not  receive  this  Commissioner  at  all,  I 
move  to  lay  the  whole  subject  on  the  table. 

Mr.  Doniphan.  On  that  I  call  the  ayes  and 
noes. 

Mr.  Knott.    I  second  it. 

Mr.  Breckinridge.  I  only  wish  to  ask  my 
friend  to  withdraw  his  motion. 

Mr.  Smith.  At  the  request  of  my  colleague, 
I  will  withdraw  it. 

Mr.  Wright.  I  asked  leave  to  so  submit  a 
proposition,  without  any  word  of  explanation; 
but  after  what  has  transpired  in  this  body,  I  deem 
it  due  to  myself  to  intimate  the  purpose  of  that 
substitute  to  the  original  proposition.  I  regret, 
very  much  that  the  mode  adopted  by  me  for 
meeting  and  determining  the  relations  of   this 


16 


body  to  the  distinguished  gentleman  from  Geor- 
gia, should  have  occupied  so  much  time.  But  I 
had  supposed,  in  point  of  fact,  that  a  Commit- 
tee appointed  by  this  honorable  body,  would, 
in  twenty  minutes,  determine  this  matter,  I  adopt- 
ed this  mode  of  receiving  this  Commissioner  from 
Georgia,  because  I  deemed  it  respectful  to  that 
State,  and  respectful  to  us,— because  it  would 
show  that  this  body  had  not  acted  with  that  pre- 
cipitancy which  has,  unfortunately,  become  an 
epidemic  in  this  land  in  all  matters  touching  the 
integrity  of  our  great  Commonwealth  and  the 
perpetuity  of  these  States,  because  it  would  show 
that  we  had  acted  with  that  coolness  and  wisdom 
which  would  become  statesmen.  I  will  add  that 
the  substitute  I  offered  had  no  such  design  as  to 
cast  a  slur  or  ignominy  upon  this  Commissioner 
from  our  sister  State.  That  is  not  my  object. 
My  object  was  to  treat  him  with  the  greatest  re- 
spect and  treat  ourselves  likewise  with  becoming 
consideration.  My  purpose  was  so  to  manage 
this  affair  as  that  we  could  maintain  our  self- 
respect — maintain  whatever  views  we  have  in  re- 
gard to  the  present  condition  of  public  affairs 
and  the  relation  in  which  we  stand  to  the  Gen- 
eral Government  and  our  sister  States.  That  we 
could  maintain  that  position  with  due  respect 
to  ourselves  and  becoming  courtesy  to  our 
sister  States,  and  at  the  same  time  have  a  due 
regard  to  that  allegiance  to  the  banner  that  hangs 
above  us.  My  purpose,  therefore,  as  will  be  seen 
in  this  resolution,  was  to  show  to  our  sister  State 
of  Georgia  that  we  did  not  regard  her  as  theoret- 
ically and  legally  outside  of  the  pale  of  empire — 
that  whatever  her  views  might  be,  we  regarded 
her  in  the  bond  of  sisterhood,  and,  so  treating 
it,  we  could  hear  what  she  had  to  say,  and  so 
treating  it  as  that  nothing  that  could  come  from 
her  would  be  regarded  by  the  most  ardent  as  so- 
licitation to  treason.  It  was  with  this  view  that 
I  proposed  that  mode  of  proceeding,  which  would 
be  respectful  to  Georgia,  to  ourselves,  to  our  flag, 
and  to  those  high  obligations  under  which  we 
have  recently  renewed  our  patriotic  allegiance  to 
our  country.  If  such  a  resolution  be  passed  we 
can  then  receive  this  gentleman  at  the  earliest 
hour  that  may  accommodate  him. 

The  gentleman  from  Clay  (Mr.  Doniphan)  says 
this  matter  demands  grave  and  important  con- 
sideration. I  believe  so  too.  I  believe  it  to  be  so 
grave  on  all  sides  as  to  require  at  least  a  moment's 
deliberation,  so  that  we  may  not  follow  in  the 
footsteps  of  that  precipitancy  which  unfortunately 
has  brought  about  that  disintegration  of  which 
he  complains.  Sir,  I  hold  it  especially  to  be  the 
duty  of  Missouri  to  be  calm,  prudent  and  wise  in 
this  emergency.  Her  yery  history  speaks  the 
power  in  regard  to  this  position  of  mediator  and  pa- 
cificator which  she  should  take.  She  should  occupy 
a  middle  ground  in  the  temperate  zone  of  politics, 
which  she  occupies  in  a  geographical  point  of 


view;  she  should  speak  mildly  and  respectfully 
to  all  members  of  this  sisterhood  and  brother- 
hood; she  should  speak  mildly  and  fraternally  to 
the  North,  erring  as  it  has  been ;  she  should 
speak  kindly  and  fraternally  to  the  South,  erring 
as  it  has  been;  and,  at  the  same  time,  maintain 
the  integrity  of  her  allegiance  to  the  Union,  and 
show,  by  her  wise  and  prudent  counsel,  that 
madness  ought  not  to  rule  the  hour,  but  that  we 
should  practically  follow  the  example  of  our  fa- 
thers, and  entitle  ourselves  to  the  consideration  of 
statesmen,  by  that  cool,  clear-headed,  practi- 
cal philosophy  which  distinguished  them  above 
the  men  of  that  time  in  all  parts  of  the  earth. 
The  office  of  Missouri  is  that  of  a  pacificator. 
She  is  entitled  to  it  by  her  historical  position  in 
the  family  of  States.  She  came  in  on  one  of 
those  civil  feuds  that  shook  the  nation's  centre. 
As  a  sufferer,  she  is,  perhaps,  the  greatest;  and 
that  very  suffering  ought  to  give  her  power  to 
speak  potentially.  Thus  much,  sir— without  de- 
siring to  occupy  the  attention  of  this  honorable 
body— I  have  deemed  proper  to  say  in  behalf  of 
my  proposition.  I  say  that  my  sympathies  are 
with  the  erring  sisters  of  the  South;  and  I  know 
the  delicacy  of  the  position  occupied  by  this  gen- 
tleman from  Georgia;  and  I  wish  to  put  him  in 
such  a  position  as  that  what  will  come  from  him 
will  not  be  treated  as  solicitations  for  treason  or 
enmity  to  the  flag  of  our  Union.  If  these  views 
obtain,  I  see  how  the  conflict  may  be  reconciled. 
Mr.  Hall,  of  Buchanan.  It  is  now  but  a  few 
minutes  of  12  o'clock,  and  I  therefore  call  the 
previous  question. 

Mr.  McClurg.     I  would  inquire,  Mr.  Presi- 
dent— 
The  Chair.    The  gentleman  is  out  of  order. 
Mr.  McClurg.    I  simply  rise  for  inquiry.    I 
desire  to  know  if  the  previous  question  should 
not  be  sustained,  what  would  be  the  effect  ?  Would 
it  not  make  the  whole   subject  lie  over  until  to- 
morrow ? 
The  Chair.    Such  would  be  the  effect. 
Mr.  McClurg.    Then  I  trust  that  the  gentle- 
man will  withdraw  his  motion  for  the  previous 
question. 

The  motion  for  the  previous  question  was  put 
and  sustained. 

The  question  next  being  on  the  adoption  of  the 
substitute  offered  by  Mr.  Redd,  it  was  answered 
affirmatively  by  the  following  vote : 

Ayes — Messrs.  Allen,  Bartlett,  Bass,  Bast, 
Birch,  Brown,  Calhoun,  Cayce,  Chenault,  Collier, 
Cormingo, Crawford,  Doniphan,  Donnell,  Douglas 
Drake,  Dunn,  Frayser,  Flood,  Gamble,  Givens, 
Gorin,  Gravely,  Hall  of  Buchanan,  Harbin, 
Hatcher,  Holt,  Howell,  Hudgins,  Kicld,  Knott, 
Marmaduke,  Marvin,  Matson,  McCormick,  Mc- 
Dowell, McFerran,  Moss,  Noell,  Norton,  Phillips, 
Pipkin,  Rankin,  Ray,  Redd,  Ritchey,  Ross,  Saw- 
yer,  Saver,    Shackelford  of  Howard,   Sheeley, 


17 


Stewart,  Tindall,  Waller,  Watkins,  Welch,  Wil- 
son, Woodson,  Wool  folk,  Vanbuskirk,  Zimmer- 
man and  Mr.  President — 62. 

Noes— Messrs.  Bogy,  Breckinridge,  Brodhead, 
Bridge,  Bush,  Eitzen,  Foster,  Gantt,  Hall  of 
Randolph,  Henderson,  Hendricks,  Hitchcock, 
Holmes,  How,  Irvin,  Isbell,  Jackson,  Jamison, 
Johnson,  Leeper,  Linton,  Long,  Maupin,  Mc- 
Clurg,  Meyer,  Morrow,  Orr,  Pomeroy,  Rowland, 
Shackleford  of  St.  Louis,  Smith  of  Linn,  Smith 
of  St.  Louis,  Turner  and  Wright— 35. 

Substitute  declared  adopted. 

The  Chair  appointed  Messrs  Redd,  Wright  and 
Pipkin  as  the  committee  to  wait  upon  Mr. 
Glenn. 

Mr.  Redd  asked  to  be  excused. 

Excused,  and  Mr.  Pomeroy  appointed  in  his 
stead. 

The  committe  retired  to  give  notice  to  Mr. 
Glenn  of  the  action  of  the  Convention. 

Mr.  Birch  said  as  the  Convention  had  deter- 
mined to  have  open  session,  he  would  deem  it  es- 
sential that  the  proceedings    should  be  correctly 
reported.    He  was  therefore  in  favor  of  secur 
in^  the  services  of  well  qualified  reporters. 

Mr.  Wilson  called  up  the  resolution  offered  by 
him  on  Friday,  in  regard  to  the  same  subject. 

The  resolution  was  read  by  the  Secretary. 

Mr.  Sheelet  rose  to  inquire  whether  the  Con- 
vention was  authorized  to  appoint  and  pay  its  Re- 
porters. 

Mr.  Wilson*.  I  understand  the  law  calling  this 
Convention  gives  them  all  the  power  as  to  officers 
and  servants  which  the  Legislature  of  the  State 
has.  It  has  been  customary  under  the  rules,  for 
a  number  of  sessions,  to  pay  reporters.  I  suppose, 
therefore,  there  is  no  question  as  to  the  authority 
of  the  Convention  to  employ  and  pay  reporters  if 
they  think  proper.  And  while  I  am  up,  Mr. 
President,  I  may  as  well  say  that  I  think  it  very 
important  that  this  Convention  should  take  the 
proper  means  to  be  reported  correctly.  It  is  sup- 
posed—in the  country  at  least— that  we  are  a  body 
of  an  important  character,  and  if  we  are  reported 
at  all,  it  is  very  proper  and  right  that  we  should 
be  correctly  reported.  For  this  reason  I  have 
offered  the  resolution. 

Mr.  Hatcher.  I  would  ask,  Mr.  President, 
how  and  when  the  reports  shall  be  published— 
whether  in  newspapers  or  pamphlet  form,  or  how? 

The  Chair.  The  reports  will  be  made  for  the 
use  of  the  Convention,  and  the  Convention  may 
make  any  disposition  of  them,  I  imagine,  which 
it  chooses 

The  question  was  then  taken  on  the  resolution, 
and  answered  affirmatively. 

Resolution  declared  adopted. 

The  Chair  appointed  Messrs.  Wilson,  Birch, 
and  Hall,  of  Randolph,  as  the  Committee. 

2 


Mr.  Foster  offered  a  resolution  declaring  W. 
D.  Bartlctt  Sergeant-at-arms  for  the  Convention, 
and  said : 

In  presenting  this  resolution,  Mr.  President,  I 
think  it  must  be  very  apparent  to  this  Convention 
that  a  Sergeant-at-arms  will  be  necessary.  Al- 
though the  Committee,  in  making  their  report, 
thought  proper,  for  reasons  I  suppose  satifactory 
to  themselves,  not  to  designate  such  an  officer  as 
necessary  in  Jefferson  City,  yet  it  is  evident  we 
shall  need  one  here.  I  have  simply  to  add  that 
Mr.  Bartlett  is  well  qualified  to  discharge  the  du- 
ties of  Sergeant-at-arms.  He  is  a  worthy,  respec- 
table citizen,  and  resides  North  of  the  Missouri 
river,  but  is,  notwithstanding,  a  good  sound  man. 
Laughter.] 

Mr.  Sheeley  offered  as  a  substitute  for  Mr. 
Foster's  resolution,  that  the  Convention  now  pro- 
ceed to  the  election  of  a  Sergeant  at  Arms. 

Mr.  Chenault.  I  will  call  the  Chair's  atten- 
tion to  the  thirty-seventh  rule.  It  seems  to  me 
that  our  action  is  in  conflict  with  that  rule. 

The  Chair.  The  Chair  is  aware  of  that  rule. 
This  does  not  violate  that  rule. 

The  substitute  was  thereupon  adopted,  and  the 
Convention  proceeded  to  the  election  of  Sergeant 
at  Arms. 

The  following  gentlemen  were  put  in  nomina- 
tion : 

W.  D.  Bartlett,  of  Macon  county,  John  Stove, 
of  St.  Louis,  Dr.  J.  M.  Martin,  of  Callaway 
county,  Calvin  Paris,  of  St.  Louis  county,  and 
Col.  Grover,  of  Johnson  county. 

A  ballot  was  taken  with  the  following  result  : 

Bartlett,  37;  Stove,  1;  Martin,  14;  Paris,  2; 
Grover,  38. 

The  names  of  Martin  and  Stove  were  with- 
drawn. 

The  Convention  was  proceeding  with  a  second 
ballot,  when  the  committee  arrived  with  the 
Hon.  L.  J.  Glenn,  Commissioner  from  the  State 
of  Georgia. 

Mr.  Glenn,  after  having  been  introduced  to 
the  President  and  the  Convention,  spoke  as  fol- 
lows: 

commissioner  glenn's  speech. 

Mr.  President  and  Gentlemen  of  the  Missouri 
Convention :  On  the  19th  day  of  January,  a  Con- 
vention of  the  people  of  the  State  of  Georgia 
adopted  an  ordinance  of  secession,  which  I  beg 
leave  to  read  and  present  to  this  Convention. 
They  also  adopted  a  resolution  appointing  com- 
missioners to  the  various  States,  which  I  "will 
read.  [Mr.  Glenn  here  read  the  ordinance  of  se- 
cession passed  by  the  State  of  Georgia,  and  the 
resolution  referring  to  his  appointment  as  Commis- 
sioner.] Under  that  resolution,  gentlemen  of  the 
Convention,  I  had  the  honor  to  be  appointed  a 
Commissioner  from  the  State  of  Georgia  to  the 
State  of  Missouri,  and  having  read  and  presented 
to  you  the  ordinance  of  secession  and  the  resolu- 


18 


tion,  my  duty  might  be  considered  as  having  been 
performed.  It  is,  perhaps,  however,  due  alike  to 
the  State  which  I  represent,  and  the  State  of  Mis- 
souri, that,  with  your  permission,  I  shall  accom- 
pany the  execution  of  my  duty  with  a  few  brief 
remarks.  I  propose  to  trespass  upon  your  pa- 
tience but  a  short  time. 

Georgia  has  not  assumed  this  position  because 
of  any  dissatisfaction  with  the  Constitution,  be- 
cause of  any  dissatisfaction  with  the  General 
Government  when  administered  in  accordance 
with  the  spirit  of  that  Constitution.  If  her  North- 
ern confederates  had  been  true  to  that  instru- 
ment, if  they  had  carried  out  the  Federal  Consti- 
tution according  to  its  spirit  and  letter,  Georgia, 
having  been  among  the  first  to  adopt  the  Federal 
Constitution,  would  have  been  among  the  last  to 
have  abandoned  the  General  Government.  The 
causes  which  have  operated  to  induce  and  impel 
the  State  of  Georgia,  one  of  the  old  thirteen 
States,  one  of  those  which  passed  through  the  fire 
and  blood  of  the  Revolution,  to  sever  the  ties  th  at 
bound  her  to  the  Government  of  her  fathers,  have 
been  enunciated,  and  read  and  understood  of  all 
men. 

I  do  not,  gentlemn,  propose  to  enter  into  any- 
thing like  a  detailed  history  of  the  rise  and  pro- 
gress, and  present  position  of  the  anti-slavery  feel- 
ing of  the  North.  To  do  so  would  be  a  reflection 
upon  yuor  intelligeuce — an  abuse  of  your  indul- 
gence, and  an  assumption  on  my  part  of  an  un- 
necessary task. 

The  first  occasion  upon  which  this  feeling  of 
hostility  among  the  people  of  the  Northern  States 
assumed  a  position  of  hostility  was,  I  believe,  the 
application  of  your  own  people,  then  a  Territory, 
for  admission  into  the  Federal  Union.  With  the 
history  and  result  of  that  struggle  you  are  fa- 
milar.  I  need  not  recite  it.  Without  assuming  a 
political  aspect  or  organization,  the  Abolition- 
ists a  few  years  after  this  event  formed  societies; 
they  established  newspapers  at  different  points.  In 
New  York,  Boston  and  other  places,  they  began 
to  teach  the  mind  of  the  rising  generation.  They 
began  to  preach  their  doctrines  from  the  puipit, 
and  but  a  few  years  elapsed  before  this  anti- 
slavery  feeling  had  so  far  overcome  and  taken 
possession  of  the  religious  mind  of  the  North  that 
(as  you  remember  in  1844)  they  deposed  from 
office  one  of  their  ablest  men,  to-wit :  Bishop  An- 
drew, of  Georgia,  for  no  other  reason  than  that 
he  had  intermarried  with  a  lady  in  Georgia  who 
was  possessed  of  a  few  negroes  in  her  own 
right.  It  was  then,  you  recollect,  that  the 
Southern  Methodists  dissolved  their  connection 
with  their  fanatical  brethren  of  the  North.  The 
same  feeling  and  spirit  of  opposition  to  the 
Southern  interest  and  institutions — the  same  fan- 
atical spirit  if  you  please— entered  into  the  Bap- 
tist church  and  soon  after  brought  about  an 
effective  separation  of  that  denomination.     And, 


in  truth,  gentlemen  of  Missouri,  so  far  has  this 
feeling  taken  possession  of  the  mind  of  the  North, 
that  at  this  time  there  are  but  few  places  and  few 
churches  to  be  found  on  the  Northern  soil,  where 
the  Southern  church,  however  pure  and  upright 
and  devoted  to  its  cause,  would  be  allowed  to 
proclaim  its  holy  mission.  As  might  have  been 
expected,  this  feeling  entered  into  the  political 
organ  ization  of  the  country.  The  Abolition  party 
of  the  North,  for  many  ye-irs,  only  held  the 
balance  of  power  between  tho  political  organ- 
izations of  the  country,  but  it  soon  took  pos- 
session of  one  of  them  and  you  know,  aa 
every  man  knows  who  has  read  the  histoiy  of  the 
political  parties  of  the  country,  that  the  untimely 
end  of  the  old  Whig  organization  was  attribut- 
able alone  to  this  cause.  Even  Mr.  Clay,  with  all 
his  power,  and  with  all  his  influence  could  not 
save  the  Whig  organization  from  the  withering 
effects  and  influence  of  this  party.  Gentlemen, 
some  years  thereafter  another  political  organiza- 
tion, the  American  party,  arose — as  was  said,  on 
the  ruins  of  both  the  old  political  organizations, 
discarding  the  evils  of  both,  and  combining  the 
virtues  of  both.  It  lived  for  a  while,  so  long  as 
it  was  confined  within  the  limits  of  State  Govern- 
ments, and  you  remember  that  no  sooner  than 
the  delegates  of  this  party  from  the  North  and 
South,  in  1856,  met  in  convention  in  the  city  of 
Philadelphia,  than  they  disagreed  and  differed  in 
reference  to  the  slave  question,  and  it  was 
then  that  the  delegates  from  the  North- 
ern States,  or  most  of  them  withdrew 
and  went  into  a  convention  with  those  of 
more  congenial  principles  and  tastes  in  the  city  of 
Pittsburgh,  and  there  Mr.  Fremont  was  nomi- 
nated. You  remember  the  platform  upon  which 
he  was  nominated,  I  will  not  take  up  your  timu 
by  reading  it.  You  will  remember  that  the  prin- 
ciple therein  advocated  was  that  it  was  the  duty, 
the  right  and  power  of  Congress  to  exclude  the 
men  of  the  South  with  their  property  from  the 
common  territory  of  the  Union.  You  will  further 
remember,  gentlemen,  what  a  contest  there  was 
in  the  election  that  followed.  You  vividly  recol- 
lect that  struggle,  and  that  it  was  only  after  the 
most  superhuman  effort  on  the  part  of  the  Demo- 
cratic party,  the  conservative  portion  of  the  peo- 
ple of  the  North,  that  Mr.  Buchanan  was 
elected. 

Well,  gentlemen,  four  years  passed  away. 
Within  that  time  does  the  anti- slavery  feeling  o. 
the  North  subside?  Is  there  any  abatement  of 
hostility  of  the  Northern  people  towards  the  insti- 
tutions and  rights  of  the  South  ?  Why,  within 
those  four  years  what  have  the  people  of  Georgia 
seen  and  witnessed?  They  have  witnessed  tho 
formation  of  Emigrant  Aid  Societies  for  the  pur- 
pose of  sending  men  into  the  common  Territories 
of  the  country  for  no  other  object  than  to  exclude 
the  men  of  Georgia  and  men  of  Missouri  there- 


19 


from  with  their  property.  In  that  same  time  they 
have  witnessed  their  own  and  your  own  people 
shot  down,  and  the  soil  of  Kansas  moistened  with 
the  blood  of  your  own  people,  for  no  other  crime 
than  the  assertion  and  vindication  of  their  own 
constitutional  rights.  Within  that  time,  gentle- 
men, we  have  seen  the  Governor  of  a  non-slave- 
holding  State  refusing  to  deliver  a  fugi- 
tive from  justice  upon  the  demand  of 
the  Governor  of  the  State  of  Kentucky, 
for  the  reason,  as  they  hold,  that  it  is  no  crime  to 
entice  your  slaves  to  leave  you.  Within  that 
time  Georgia  has  witnessed  more  than  sixty  Re- 
presentatives of  this  organization  at  the  North, 
endorsing  and  recommending  the  infamous  senti- 
ments contained  in  the  Helper  Book,  and  but  for 
I  the  indomitable  perseverance  of  one  of  the  Mis- 
:  souri  Representatives  in  urging  his  resolution  to 
i  that  effect,  she  would  have  witnessed  one  of  the 
j  men  who  endorsed  the  book  elevated  to  the 
Speakership.  She  has  witnessed,  moreover,  with- 
in  these  four  years  almost  every  State  North  of 
Mason  and  Dixon's  line  pass  under  the  influence 
.  and  power  of  the  Republican  organization  of  the 
North.  She  has  seen  within  that  time  the  true 
men,  the  constitutional  men  of  the  North  cut 
down  one  after  another,  and  in  every  case  and  on 
every  occasion  where  the  opportunity  has  oc- 
curred, every  true  and  constitutional  man  in  the 
Senate  of  the  United  States,  with  but  one  excep- 
tion within  the  last  four  years,  has  been  swept 
1  away  and  his  place  filled  and  occupied  by  a  Re- 
presentative of  the  Republican  party. 

She  has  seen  within  that  time,  as  I  have  al- 
ready stated,  the  States  of  the  North  pass  under 
the  influence  and  into  the  hands  of  this  organiza- 
tion. It  has  seen  their  Executive,  their  Judicial 
and  their  Legislative  Departments— all  their  of- 
fices, from  the  highest  to  the  lowest,  from  the 
constable  up  through  every  intermediate  grade  to 
the  Executive— filled  with  the  representatives  of 
the  Republican  organization.  Not  only  so,  but, 
within  these  four  years,  Georgia  has  seen  an  or- 
ganized band  descending  upon  the  soil  of  Virgin- 
ia, taking  possession  of  the  arsenal  and  property 
of  the  Government,  and  there  pouring  out  the 
blood,  shedding  the  innocent  blood,  of  Virginia's 
citizens,  for  the  avowed  purpose  of  liberating  the 
slaves  of  the  South. 

But,  gentlemen,  these  four  years  have  passed 
away,  and  the  Republican  organization — a  sec- 
tional organization — existing  alone  in  the  North- 
ern States ;  with  the  exception  of  a  few  thousand 
votes  in  the  South ;  I  say  this  organization,  sec- 
tional, geographical — an  organization  against 
the  formation  of  which,  the^Father  of  his  Country 
warned  the  American  people,  met  in  Convention 
at  the  city  of  Chicago,  and  there  proclaimed  and 
published  a  platform  of  principles  to  the  world. 
And,  gentlemen,  this  same  platform  is  to  be  found 
one  in  spirit  and  in  object,  to  the  one  which  was 


adopted  in  Pittsburgh  in  1856 ;  whereby  it  is  as- 
serted that  Congress  has  the  power  and  right, 
aye,  and  that  it  is  its  duty,  to  exclude  the  South- 
ern man  and  his  property  from  the  Territories, 
belonging  alike  to  the  North  and  the  South,  to 
the  East  and  the  West.  They  nominated  their 
candidates  on  this  platform.  They  go  before  the 
people— the  ides  of  November  roll  around— what 
is  the  result?  Mr.  Lincoln  and  Mr.  Hamlin  are 
elected  by  an  overwhelming  majority  of  the  pop- 
ular vote  in  the  North. 

Now,  gentlemen,  we  have  not  only  to  look  to 
the  platform  of  this  party  for  the  principles  and 
objects  which  they  avow,  but  we  must  also  look 
(and  so  the  State  of  Georgia  has  done)  to  the 
principles  and  objects  avowed  by  the  candidates 
who  have  been  elected  by  the  Republican  organ- 
ization. Mr.  Lincoln,  the  President  elect,  sub- 
scribes to  the  platform  adopted  in  Chicago.  Not 
only  so,  but  he  avowed  the  principles  contained 
in  it  long  before  he  was  nominated,  and  enuncia- 
ted the  doctrine  that  Congress  had  the  power  to 
exclude  the  Southern  man  from  going  into  the 
Territories  with  his  property.  He  said  that  if  he 
were  a  member  of  Congress  he  would  vote  to 
effect  this  exclusion,  regardless  of  the  decisions  of 
the  Supreme  tribunal  of  the  country.  Not  only 
so,  but  he  has  avowed  the  irrepressible  conflict. 
Georgia  saw  all  this  and  declared  that  the  North- 
ern mind  would  never  become  easy  and  quiet 
upon  this  question  until  it  was  satisfied  that 
slavery  was  put  in  a  course  of  ultimate  extinction. 
Georgia  has  looked  to  his  published  declarations 
and  opinions  in  order  to  ascertain  the  objects  and 
views  and  opinions  of  the  Republican  organiza- 
tion. Not  stopping  there,  she  has  looked  to  the 
declarations  of  the  representative  men  of  the  Re- 
publican organization.  She  has  looked  to  the 
views  and  opinions  as  expressed  by  Mr.  Seward, 
Mr.  Sumner,  Mr.  Wilson  and  others,  both  in  and 
out  of  Congress,  for  the  purpose  of  arriving  at  and 
ascertaining  what  was  the  ultimate  object  of  the 
Republican  organization  in  reference  to  the  insti- 
tution of  slavery.  She  has  not  confined  herself  to 
them,  but  in  order  to  ascertain  more  clearly,  if  you 
please,  the  object,  she  has  gone  into  the  county 
meetings  and  State  Conventions,  whieh  may  pro- 
bably be  a  more  true  reflex  of  the  principles  and 
objects  of  the  party,  than  the  declaration  of  its 
representative  men,  and  considered  their  action 
and  resolutions.  Looking  at  all  these  things — 
looking  at  the  national  platform;  at  the  county 
and  State  platforms;  at  the  declarations  published 
of  Mr.  Lincoln  himself;  at  the  declaration  and 
avowals  of  the  representative  men  of  the  party, 
Georgia  came  to  the  conclusion  that  it  was  the 
avowed  object  of  the  Republican  organization 
to  put  slavery  and  the  government  upon 
such  a  track  as  that  slavery  might  ultimately  be 
put  in  a  course  of  ultimate  extinction — that  it 
was  their  object  to  surround  the  slaveholding 


20 


States  with  a  circle  of  free  States,  and  thereby 
cause  the  institution  (to  use  their  own  language) 
to  sting  itself  to  death.  Seeing  these  things,  be- 
lieving, gentlemen  of  Missouri,  that  there  was  no 
hope  in  the  future — looking  to  the  end  and  seeing 
nothing  but  danger  and  destruction  to  her  people 
and  hee  best  interests — aye,  seeing  that  there  was 
an  antagonism,  an  irreconcilable  antagonism,  if 
you  please,  between  the  two  sections  of  the  coun- 
try—believing, if  you  please,  that  there  is  a  dif- 
ference of  principles,  of  civilization  between  the 
North  and  South,  and  feeling  that  this  dif- 
ference would  never  be  reconciled,  Georgia 
thought  it  was  best  there  should  be  a  peace- 
able separation.  Hence,  gentlemen,  she  has 
adopted  her  ordinance  of  secession,  and  she 
invites  all  slaveholding  States  to  unite  with 
her,  and  among  them  the  State  of  Missouri — to 
unite  with  her  in  forming  a  Southern  Confed- 
eracy— believing  that,  if  they  all  will  unite  in 
forming  a  Southern  Confederacy,  we  shall 
thereby  have  a  government  combining,  as  it 
were,  every  variety  of  soil  and  climate,  embrac- 
ing, as  it  will,  a  people  homogeneous  in  views,  in 
feelings,  in  sympathies  and  interests.  With  a 
government  securing  equal  rights  to  all  and  every 
State  and  every  citizen,  she  thinks  that  a  future 
will  be  presented  full  of  power  and  greatness  to 
the  Union,  of  happiness  and  prosperity  to  the 
people. 

Mr.  President  and  Gentlemen  of  the  Conven- 
tion: In  the  name  of  my  State  and  for  myself 
individually,  I  beg  you  to  accept  my  grateful  ac- 
knowledgment, for  the  kind  reception  and  re- 
spectful hearing  you  have  given  me,  (mingled 
applause  and  hisses  among  the  audience,  which 
lasted  for  some  time,  and  was  subdued  with 
some  difficulty  by  the  President.) 

The  Secretary  read  the  result  of  the  second 
ballot  for  Sergeant-at-Arms,  as  follows : 
For  W.  D.  Bartlett,  39;  Col.  Grover,  54. 
Col.  Grover  having  received  a  majority  of  all 
the  votes  cast,  he  was  declared  duly  elected. 

On  motion  of  Mr.  Welch,  the  Convention  ad- 
journed to  meet  again  on  Tuesday,  (this)  morn- 
ing, at  10  o'clock. 


FOURTH    DAY. 

St.  Louis,  March  5th,  1861. 

Met  at  10  o'clock,  a.  m. 

Mr.  President  in  the  chair. 

The  President.  I  will  observe  to  the  gentle- 
men of  the  lobby  that  good  order  should  be  pre- 
served— that  no  cheering  will  be  allowed  on  an3r 
occasion — that  however  disagreeable  it  may  be  to 
the  presiding  officer  of  this  body  to  clear  the  spec- 
tators from  the  lobby,  it  will  become  his  impera- 
tive duty  to  do  so,  unless  order  is  preserved. 


Mr.  Campbell,  Assistant  Secretary,  read  the 
journal  of  yesterday. 

The  President  announced  committees  as 
follows : 

Committee  on  Federal  Relations. — Messrs 
Gamble,  Henderson,  Redd,  Hall  of  Randolph, 
Tindall,  Doniphan,  Hall  of  Buchanan,  Watkins, 
Hough,  Sawyer,  Douglass,  Chenault  and  Pome- 
roy. 

Committee  on  Accounts. — Messrs.  Shackle- 
ford   of  Howard,   Pipkin  and  Harbin. 

Mr.  Hatcher  suggested  that  the  Hon.  Harri- 
son Hough,  delegate  from  the  25th  district,  be 
sworn  in. 

The  President  requested  Judge  Breckinridge  to 
administer  the  oath,  who  thereupon  came  for- 
ward and  administered  the  oath  to  Mr.  Hough, 

Mr.  Pomeroy.  I  rise  for  the  purpose  of  stating 
to  this  Convention  that  Mr.  Hill  of  Pulaski,  a 
member  of  this  Convention,  is  disabled  from  at- 
tending by  sickness.  I  make  this  mention  in 
justice  to  Mr.  Hill. 

The  Chair.  Does  the  gentleman  make  a 
motion? 

Mr.  Pomeroy.  I  suppose  the  mere  mention 
of  the  fact  is  sufficient.  I,  therefore,  have  no 
motion  to  make. 

Mr.  Howell  presented  the  following  resolu- 
tions, for  reference  to  the  Committee  on  Federal 
Relations,  which  were  read  by  the  Secretary : 

Resolved,  That  we,  the  people  of  the  State  of  Mis- 
souri, by  our  delegates  in  Convention  assembled, 
being  ardently  attached  to  the  Union  of  the  States 
in  this  Confederacy,  and  desirous  of  maintaining 
and  transmitting  it  to  succeeding  generations 
according  to  the  letter  and  spirit  of  the  Constitu- 
tion, which  we  regard  as  the  highest  effort  of 
statesmanship  yet  made. 

In  view,  however,  that  seven  States  have  in 
their  sovereign  capacity  adopted  ordinances  de- 
claring their  connection  with  the  General  Gov- 
ernment dissolved,  and  have  further  declared 
that  they  are  a  confederated  Government  among 
themselves ;  and  several  other  States  are  delibera- 
ting as  to  a  withdrawal  from  the  Union,  and 
that  in  our  opinion  any  force  levied  against  said 
States  that  have  declared  this  withdrawal,  or 
that  may  so  declare,  by  the  General  Government, 
would  destroy  all  hope  of  reconstructing  or  pre- 
serving the  Union; 

Do  earnestly  remonstrate  and  protest  against 
any  and  all  coercive  measures  or  attempts  at  co- 
ercion of  said  States  into  submission  to  the  Gene- 
ral Government,  whether  clothed  with  the  name 
or  pretext  of  executing  the  laws  of  the  Union,  or 
otherwise,  and  we  declare  that  in  such  contin- 
gency Missouri  will  not  view  the  same  with  in- 
difference. 

Resolved,  That  the  President  of  the  Conven- 
tion cause  a  copy  of  the  foregoing  resolution    o 


21 


be  respectfully  laid  before  the  President  of  the 
United  States. 

The  Chair.  The  resolution  goes  to  the  com- 
mittee without  a  motion. 

Mr.  Redd  offered  the  following : 

Resolved,  by  the  people  of  the  State  of  Mis- 
souri, in  convention  assembled,  That  we  are  un- 
alterably opposed  to  the  doctrine  of  coercion,  be- 
lieving that  any  attempt  to  carry  it  into  practice 
would  inevitably  result  in  civil  war,  and  forever 
destroy  all  hopes  of  preserving  or  reconstructing 
the  Union. 

And  so  believing,  we  deem  it  due  to  our  North- 
ern brethern  to  declare  that  it  is  the  determina- 
tion of  the  people  of  Missouri,  in  the  event  of  any 
Southern  State  being  invaded  for  the  purpose  of 
carrying  such  doctrine  into  effect,  to  take  their 
stand  by  the  side  of  their  Southern  brethren  to  re- 
sist the  invaders  at  all  hazards.  [Applause in  the 
lobby.] 

The  Chair.  The  Doorkeeper  will  require  those 
persons  who  have  been  cheering  to  leave  the 
lobby.  The  resolution  just  read  will  go  to  the 
committee  without  a  motion. 

Mr.  Gantt.  I  think  it  would  be  very  expedi- 
ent that  this  Convention  should  give  direction  to 
the  Sergeant-at-Arms  to  require  all  spectators  to 
be  seated,  and  not  to  admit  any  more  as  soon  as 
all  the  seats  are  filled. 

Mr.  Breckinridge.  I  am  informed  that  the 
Sergeant-at-Arms  elect  is  not  yet  in  the  city. 

The  Chair.  I  received  a  telegraphic  dispatch 
from  him,  stating  that  he  would  be  here  in  the 
afternoon. 

Mr.  Breckinridge.  The  gentleman  no  doubt 
will  be  here  as  soon  as  he  can,  but  in  the  mean- 
time I  would  suggest  the  propriety  of  appointing 
Captain  Couzins  temporary  Sergeant.  Captain 
Couzins  is  well-known  to  all  of  us  who  are  resi- 
dents of  this  city  and  to  his  kindness  we  are  al- 
ready largely  indebted.  I  have  no  doubt  he  would 
prove  efficient. 

The  Chair.  The  gentlemen  will  please  reduce 
their  propositions  to  writing. 

Messrs.  Gaktt  and  Breckinridge  thereupon 
offered  their  propositions  in  writing,  and  they 
were  severally  adopted  by  the  Convention. 

The  adoption  of  Mr.  Gantt's  resolution  was  the 
signal  for  a  general  rush  for  seats  in  the  lobby. 

Mr.  Henderson  offered  the  following  resolu- 
tion, which  was  adopted : 

Resolved,  That  a  committee  of  five  members 
be  appointed  by  the  President,  to  whom  shall  be 
referred  the  communications  made  to  the  Con- 
vention by  the  Hon.  Luther  J.  Glenn,  Commis- 
sioner from  the  State  of  Georgia,  and  that  they 
report  to  the  Convention  such  action  as  they  may 
deem  a  respectful  and  suitable  response  thereto 
on  the  part  of  this  State. 

On  motion  of  Mr.  Pipkin,  Master  Long  was 
appointed  as  a  page  of  the  Convention. 


Mr.  Ritchey  ffave  the  following  notice  in 
writing:  "I  now  give  notice  to  the  members  of 
this  Convention  that  I  will  on  to-morrow  move  to 
rescind  that  part  of  the  ISth  rule  adopted,  mak- 
ing it  the  duty  of  each  member  making  a  propo- 
sition to  read  it  in  his  place  to  the  Convention. 

Mr.  Smith,  of  St.  Louis :  Mr.  President,  I 
hold  a  resolution  in  my  hand,  providing  for  a  new 
Committee,  which  I  believe,  will  be  of  essential 
service  to  this  Convention.  There  must  be  a 
great  anxiety  felt  throughout  the  State,  to  know 
what  this  Convention  will  do,  and  what  powers  it 
possesses.  Now,  sir,  there  is  a  great  anxiety  also 
to  know  what  it  will  not  do.  I  am  disposed  by 
this  resolution,  to  put  matters  in  such  a  train 
that  all  will  learn  what  the  Convention  will  do  in 
a  very  short  time,  that  is,  as  soon  as  the  commit- 
tee has  reported. 

Sir,  in  the  calling  of  the  Convention,  there  are 
eertain  matters  laid  down  that  this  Convention 
shall  attend  to,  and  although  I  do  not  acknow- 
ledge that  the  creator,  as  the  Legislature  has  been 
recently  called,  has  any  power  to  say  to  us  what 
we  shall  do  and  what  we  shall  not  do,  still  we 
are  called  under  an  act  of  the  Legislature,  and  I 
take  it  that  whatever  the  people  understood  we 
were  to  do — whatever  powers  the  people  under- 
stood they  were  giving  to  us  at  the  time  they 
elected  us,  those  we  have,  and  no  others — 

The  Chair.  I  will  say  to  the  gentleman  that 
there  is  no  question  before  the  House  at  all  until 
his  proposition  is  read  by  the  Secretary. 

Mr.  Smith.  I  believe  it  is  proper  I  should  ex- 
plain my  resolution,  and  conclude  by  moving  its 
adoption. 

The  Chair.  You  can  read  your  resolution  if 
you  choese  to  do  so,  or  you  may  send  it  to  the 
Secretary  to  be  read  by  him.  As  it  is  now,  the 
Chair  does  not  know  whether  you  are  confining 
yourself  in  your  remarks  to  the  subject  under  con" 
sideration  or  not 

Mr.  Smith  thereupon  handed  the  Secretary  his 
resolution,  who  read  as  follows : 

Resolved,  That  a  committee  of  seven  members, 
one  from  each  Congressional  district,  be  consti- 
tuted, whose  duty  it  shall  be  to  take  into  consider- 
ation and  propose  to  this  Convention  such  action 
as  the  welfare  and  interest  of  the  State  shall  re- 
quire, and  also  to  report  what  measures,  if  any, 
are  demanded  under  existing  circumstances  for 
vindicating  the  sovereignty  of  the  State  and  the 
protection  of  its  institutions. 

Mr.  Smith  read  from  the  call  of  the  Legisla- 
ture for  a  Convention,  and  contended  that  the  ap- 
pointment of  a  special  committee,  in  accordance 
with  his  resolution,  would  be  highly  appropriate. 
My  reason,  he  continued,  for  offering  this  resolu- 
tion is  that  we  find  various  opinions  prevailing 
throughout  the  State,  particularly  in  the  interior, 
in  regard  to  what  the  Convention  shall  do.  It 
has  been  asserted  in   an    interior  town  that  I 


22 


lately  visited,  and  in  a  very  respectable  assembly, 
that  it  was  proposed  by  this  Convention  to  swal- 
low the  Legislature  of  Missouri — to  swallow  it  up, 
sir.  [Laughter.]  It  was  said  by  a  very  respectable 
gentleman  that  they  had  created  a  great  Le- 
viathan that  was  to  swallow  up  the  inferior  insects- 
including  of  course  all  those  gentlemen  that  com- 
pose that  respectable  body  of  which  I  now  speak. 
This  gentleman  seemed  to  express  great  fears  that 
such  would  be  the  case.  Now,  sir,  I  wish  it  un- 
derstood that  so  far  as  I  am  concerned,  I  have  no 
such  idea — and  I  suppose  that  this  Convention 
has  no  such  idea  as  to  perform  that  wonderful  act 
of  deglutition.  [Laughter.]  But  if  it  is  the  in- 
tention of  this  Convention  to  swallow  up  that  Le- 
gislature, I  beg  leave  to  excuse  myself  from  par- 
taking in  that  act.  I  have  a  very  sore  throat,  sir, 
and  my  physician  tells  me  that  I  must  not  swal- 
low anything  that  is  calculated  to  irritate,  and  if 
I  have  to  swallow  my  share  of  that  very  respecta- 
ble body,  I  should  beg  to  be  excused  from  having 
that  very  peppery  gentleman  who  made  this  re- 
mark passed  upon  me  as  my  portion.  [Great 
laughter.]  I  do  not  Avish  to  swallow  him  at  all. 
All  that  is  of  peppery  is  disagreeable  to  my  throat, 
but  red  pepper  particularly.  [Renewed  laugh- 
ter.] 

Now,  sir,  I  have  another  reason  for  not  wishing 
to  perform  that  portion  of  the  duties  which  may 
devolve  upon  this  Convention.  I  am  very  certain 
that  if  I  should  swallow  that  very  fiery  and  pep- 
pery gentleman,  he  would  not  stay  swallowed.  I 
am  sure  that  he  would  kick,  and  would  not  stay 
there.  But  whether  he  would  operate  on  me  emeti- 
cally  or  cathartically,  I  would  leave  that  for  my 
friend  here,  (Dr.  Linton,)  who  is  in  the  medical 
line,  to  determine.  [Laughter.]  At  any  rate,  I 
do  not  wish  to  have  anything  to  do  with  it. 

Now,  sir,  as  for  the  Legislature  being  the  crea- 
tor and  we  the  creatures,  I  have  nothing  to  say 
about  it.  That  may  be  so.  As  to  the  Convention 
moving  from  Jefferson  City  to  this  city,  to  a 
softer  place,  as  the  gentleman — the  peppery  gen- 
tleman— remarked,  I  confess  the  soft  impeach- 
ment. It  is  a  softer  place  than  Jefferson,  and  I 
hope  it  always  will  remain  so.  It  is  said,  sir,  that 
we  are  fugitives  from  justice  because  we  did  not 
choose  to  stay  in  the  small  hall  of  justice  that 
was  selected  for  us  at  Jefferson.  Let  them  say 
what  they  like  about  that.  I  am  sure  that  I  was 
satisfied  with  the  accommodations  that  had  there 
been  provided,  but  we  saw  very  plainly  that  the 
Legislature  could  not  go  on  while  we  were  th  ere 
The  Sergeant  was  kept  busy  all  the  time,  bring- 
ing in  the  members. 

Mr.  Gamble.  I  rise  to  call  the  gentleman  to 
order.  "The  discussion  he  is  now  engaged  in  has 
no  relation  to  the  subject  before  the  house. 

Mr.  Smith.    What  is  the  decision  of  the  Chair? 

The  Chair.  The  Chair  holds  that  the  point  of 
order  is  well  taken.    The  gentleman  is  discussing 


a  subject  wholly  irrelevant  to  the  subject  under 
consideration. 

Mr.  Smith.  "Well,  sir,  I  am  willing  to  abide  by 
the  Chair's  decision.  I  have  said  about  all  I  have 
to  say,  [laughter,]  and  I  will  conclude  by  just 
saying  one  thing  which  I  suppose  will  be  in  order, 
and  that  is,  that  I  do  not  wish  to  take  any  lead- 
ing part  in  the  proceedings  here.  I  came  here 
more  to  say  no  on  one  great  question  that  I  sup- 
posed would  come  up  than  to  say  anything  affirm- 
,  atively.  Sir,  I  could  not  resist  the  temptation  to 
|  say  a  few  words  in  regard  to  the  remarks  which 
I  heard  in  Jefferson  City  the  other  day,  and  now 
that  I  have  accomplished  my  purpose,  I  will  with- 
draw the  resolution,  because  I  do  not  wish  to  be 
on  that  committee.  [Laughter.]  If  any  one 
wishes  the  resolution  to  pass  (and  I  think  it  a  very 
proper  one)  he  can  easily  renew  it. 

Mr.  Foster.  Some  of  my  friends  in  this  part 
of  the  Hall  would  desire  the  resolution  to  be  read 
again .  They  did  not  hear  it  distinctly  when  it  was 
read  the  first  time,  and  they  think  they  are  enti- 
tled to  know  the  nature  of  a  resolution  which  has 
been  before  the  House. 

The  Chair.  The  resolution  is  already  with- 
drawn. 

Mr.  Wilson.  As  there  seems  to  be  no  further 
business  before  the  Convention,  and  in  order  to 
give  the  committees  time  to  report,  I  move  to  ad- 
journ until  4  o'clock.  Lost.  Ayes  22;  noes  not 
counted. 

Mr.  Henderson.  I  understand  it  will  be  neces- 
sary to  have  some  printing  done  for  the  Conven- 
tion, and  I  desire  to  offer  a  resolution  upon  the 
subject. 

Resolved,  That  a  committee  of  three  be  ap- 
pointed by  the  President,  whose  duty  it  shall  be 
to  contract  for  any  and  all  printing  that  may  be 
ordered  by  the  Convention,  and  that  they  report 
their  action  as  early  as  practicable.    Adopted. 

Mr.  Irwin.  I  move  to  adjoura  to  3  o'clock, 
p.  M. 

Mr.  Broadhead.  Before  that  motion  is  put,  I 
would  inquire  whether  the  committee  moved  by 
the  gentleman  sometime  ago  has  been  appointed  ? 

The  Chair.  It  has  not.  The  Chair  will  now 
announce  the  committee : 

Committee  on  Printing— Messrs.  Hendricks, 
Howell  and  Woolfolk. 

Mr.  Welsh.    I  desire  to  offer  the  following: 

Be  it  ordained  and  declared  by  the  people  of 
the  State  of  Missouri  in  Convention  assembled, 
as  follows : 

The  Legislature  shall  have  no  power  to  pass 
special  laws  for  the  following  purposes  : 

First — to  establish,  change  or  vacate  any  State 
road.  Second — to  delare  minors  of  age  for  any 
purpose.  Third— to  authorize  the  sale  of  any  real 
estate  except  that  belonging  to  the  State.  But  the 
Legislature  shall  have  power  to  pass  laws  to  au- 
thorize courts  to  do  and  perform  all  the  various 


23 


matters  herein  prohibited :  Provided,  all  such 
laws  shall  be  general  and  uniform  throughout  the 
State. 

Mr.  Hatchek.  I  move  to  lay  it  on  the  table. 
Motion  sustained. 

Mr.  Gantt.  I  desire  to  offer  a  resolution  in 
order  that  it  may  be  referred  to  the  committee  to 
be  appointed  under  the  resolution  offered  by  the 
gentleman  from  Pike,  (Mr.  Henderson.) 

Resolved,  That  this  Convention  have  respect- 
fully heard  the  address  of  the  Commissioner  from 
our  sister  State  of  Georgia,  and  having  thus  man- 
ifested a  disposition  of  the  people  of  Missouri  to 
listen  with  fraternal  kindness  to  any  voice  from 
any  of  their  fellow  citizens  of  this  Union,  feel  it  is 
due,  and  the  sovereignty  which  it  represents  re- 
quires an  unequivocal  declaration  of  dissent  of 
the  people  of  Missouri  from  the  proposal  which 
our  sister  State  of  Georgia  offers  through  her  mes- 
senger. 

Referred  to  committee  to  be  appointed  under 
Mr.  Henderson's  resolution. 

By  Mr.  Gray. 

Resolved,  That  Col.  A.  TV  Doniphan  be  re- 
quested to  address  the  Convention  in  reference  to 
the  action  of  the  Peace  Conference. 

Adopted. 

Mr.  Doniphan.  I  hardly  know  what  gentle- 
men desire  I  shall  address  them  about.  As  for 
the  action  of  the  Convention,  its  conclusions 
and  the  amendments  proposed  to  the  Constitu- 
tion of  the  United  States,  all  these  have  been 
published  in  all  the  journals,  and,  of  course, 
have  been  subjected  to  the  inspection  of  the 
gentlemen  of  this  Convention.  If  it  is  desired  to 
know  the  attitude  Missouri  assumed  there,  why, 
of  course,  if  it  be  the  pleasure  of  the  conven- 
tion, Judge  Hough,  a  member  of  this  Conven- 
tion, or  Judge  Coalter,  whom  I  see  in  the  lobby, 
or  myself,  can  give  the  Convention  our  opinion 
in  relation  to  the  matter  now  or  any  other  time. 

Voice — Now! 

Mr.  Doniphan.  Mr.  President  and  Gentlemen 
of  the  Convention :  I  was  appointed  as  one  of  the 
delegates  from  the  State  of  Missouri  to  go  to  a 
Conference  that  has  been  called  a  Peace  Con- 
gress—a Confereuce  recommended  by  the  State  of 
Virginia,  in  which  she  had  asked  a  conference 
with  her  sister  States  in  relation  to  the  difficulties 
and  embarrassments  that  now  surround  this 
Government,  and  the  Legislature  of  my  State 
thought  proper  to  designate  me  as  one  of  the  in- 
dividuals to  represent  the  interest  and  honor  of 
our  State  in  that  Convention.  I  went  there  en- 
tertaining an  opinion  that  I  presume  is  in  accord- 
ance with  the  opinions  of  a  large  majority  of  the 
members  of  this  Convention :  namely,  that  the 
disintegration,  or  rather  the  revolution  in  pro- 
gress in  this  Government  now,  was  caused  by 
one  single  element  of  strife — that  we  have  no 
other  cause  for  the  difficulties  that  now  agitate 


and  disturb  the  country  save  the  question  of 
negro  slavery — that  our  nation  was  never 
more  prosperous  in  all  the  great  elements 
that  constitute  a  free  and  happy  people  than  it  is 
now;  that  our  commerce  was  extending  and  a? 
prosperous  as  it  ever  has  been;  that  our  sails 
whitened  every  sea,  and  our  flag  floated  under 
every  sky;  that  we  were  respected  at  home  and 
abroad,  and  involved  in  no  conflict  with  any 
foreign  nation;  that  while  we  were  standing  in 
peaceful  relations  to  all  the  rest  of  the  world ; 
while  we  were  in  the  most  prosperous  condition 
that  a  nation  could  enjoy;  while  we  were  blessed 
with  abundance  at  home ;  wdiile  the  great  Valley 
of  the  Mississipppi  in  which  we  live,  and  whose 
centre  we  occupy,  extends  from  the  crest  of  the 
Alleghanies  to  the  crest  of  the  Rocky  Mountains, 
and  now  feeds  starving  millions  of  the  world  from 
overflowing  granaries,  and  clothes  the  naked  with 
its  cotton;  that  while,  therefore,  we  were  in  the 
most  prosperous  condition,  with  our  commerce, 
agricultures  and  manufactures  continually  in- 
creasing, there  was  nothing  to  interrupt  this 
prosperity  with  the  exception  of  this  solitary 
question  agitating  us  at  home — the  question  of 
negro  slavery.  It  naturally  occurs  to  every  re- 
flecting mind  that  in  order  to  restore  harmony  and 
union,  that  question  must  be  removed  from  the 
arena  of  politics — that  there  can  be  no  restoration 
of  harmony,  peace  and  quiet  unless  that  question 
is  removed.  That  question  has  interposed  be- 
tween the  North  and  the  South  and  created  a  di- 
vision, and  you  may  plaster  it  together  as  you 
please;  you  may  try  Spalding's  glue  or  anything 
else  in  the  world  but  you  cannot  bring  it  together 
until  this  question  is  removed,  and  when  this 
question  is  removed  it  will  unite  itself.  The  ques- 
tion has  been  raised,  what  is  the  best  plan  to  re- 
move this  difficulty?  It  is  well  known  that  in  all 
governments  like  this,  originating  in  equality, 
having  that  as  the  very  essence  and  foundation  of 
our  institutions — for  this  government,  in  its  revo- 
lution, was  unlike  that  of  any  other,  for  the  rea- 
son that  but  one  single  sentiment  pervaded  the 
hearts  of  our  fathers — one  single,  vital  sentiment, 
and  that  was  that  all  men  are  born  free  and  equal, 
that  are  capable  of  self-government— that  is  what 
distinguished  it  from  all  other  revolutions  in  the 
world,  and  on  that  principle  the  Government 
was  framed,  the  principle  of  equality  among 
States  and  individuals,  and  of  equal  protection 
to  property;  and  .when  wre  have  this  removed,  of 
course  the  very  essence,  foundations  and  pillars 
of  this  Government  are  destroyed  and  it  can  no 
longer  exist.  Now,  if  there  is  a  truth  in  all  gov- 
ernments, it  is  that  nationality  and  sectionalism 
cannot  exist  at  the  same  time;  they  are  entirely 
antagonistic  and  cannot  flourish  healthfully  in 
the  same  body  politic.  Sectionalism  itself  de- 
stroys, withers  and  crushes  out  nationality.  If 
there  is  sectionalism  at  the  South  in  the  shape  of 


24 


slavery  propagandism,  or  at  the  North  in  the 
shape  of  abolitionism,  nationality  cannot  exist, 
and  the  vital  element  of  the  whole  Union  is 
crushed  out.  This  sectionalism  does  exist.  For 
twenty  years  it  has  been  growing  upon  us  North 
and  South.  There  have  been  fiery  spirits  in  one 
portion  of  the  Union  who  have  administered 
aliment  to  discontented  spirits  in  another  por- 
tion of  the  Union,  and  tins  has  gone 
on  until  a  gulf  has  been  created  between  the 
North  and  South  which  has  broadened  and  deep- 
ened until  a  revolution  has  now  seperated  one 
portion  from  the  other.  The  object,  therefore,  is 
to  destroy  sectionalism.  It  has  now  assumed  a 
gigantic  shape.  It  has  now  calumniated  in  the 
election  of  two  men  to  power,  both  of  whom  live 
in  the  North,  and  have  been  placed  on  a  platform 
which  is  antagonistic  to  the'South — entirely,  in  its 
whole  aspect,  antagonistic  to  one  portion  of  the 
nation.  And  take  out  from  that  platform  this  an- 
tagonism to  the  South  and  the  essence  of  that  par- 
ty is  destroyed.  I  do  not  say  that  the  whole 
blame  devolves  upon  the  North.  I  admit  many 
imprudent  men  have  done  many  imprudent 
tilings  at  the  South,  calculated  to  inflame  the 
minds  of  men  at  the  North.  But  we  must  take 
matters  as  they  are — we  must  take  this  revolution 
as  it  is — and  we  And  that  this  revolution  has  grown 
out  of  the  triumph  of  sectionalism,and  that  triumph 
has  weakened  the  cords  that  bind  us  together, 
and  disintegration  is  the  natural  consequence. 

We  talk  of  the  revolution  inaugurated  at  the 
South,  but  no  revolution  has  been  inaugurated 
there.  The  revolution  in  this  Government  has 
been  progressing  for  the  last  twenty  years,  and  it 
has  progressed  until  it  culminated  last  fall  in  the 
triumph  of  this  sectional  party.  That  is  the  rev- 
olution that  has  destroyed  our  nationality  and 
equality — a  revolution  that  was  successful  on  the 
6th  day  of  November  last — a  revolution  that  has 
caused  the  falling  off  of  States  in  the  South  and 
the  disintegration  of  this  Government.  The  fall- 
ing off  of  these  states  is  not  the  cause  but  the 
consequence  of  the  revolution  that  preceded  it — 
it  is  nothing:  more.  As  well  or  as  logical  wouid 
it  be  to  say  that  when  the  lightning  cleaves  its 
way  through  the  forest  and  destroys  the  branches 
and  rich  foliage  of  so  me  mighty  oak  that  the 
falling  away  of  its  branches  and  the  withering  of 
its  foliage  is  the  cause  of  the  destruction  of  that 
tree.  It  is  not  the  withering  of  this  foliage  or 
the  falling  away  of  these  branches  that  causes 
the  destruction  of  that  oak,  but  it  is  the  bolt 
from  heaven  that  shattered  and  destroyed  its 
elements  of  vitality.  It  is  this  sectionalism  that 
has  stricken  down  the  nationality  of  this  Govern- 
ment; it  is  this  sectionalism  that  has  grown  up 
like  a  upas  and  poisoned  everything  around  it, 
which  has  been  the  cause  of  the  revolution  that  is 
now  destroying  the  vitality  of  this  Government. 
And    in  order  to  restore  it  back,  and  unite  the 


parts  that  have  been  thrown  off,  you  must  re- 
move this  apple  of  discord  upon  which  this  sec- 
tional party  have  fed  and  fattened,  during  its  en- 
tire progress.  To  do  that,  we  felt  that  it  was  es- 
sential that  amendments  should  be  adopted  to  the 
Constitution  that  should  settle  this  question  no  w 
and  forever.  The  Crittenden  amendments  were 
offered,  and  I  deemed  these  amendments  as  be- 
ing the  thing  properly  suited  to  remove  this  ques- 
tion now  and  for  all  time,  to  settle  this  question 
of  the  Territories  on  the  basis  of  36  dc<r.  30  min., 
and  to  remove  this  whole  subject  beyond  the  arena 
of  politics.  We  first  had  Mr.  Crittenden's  amend- 
ment, but  it  was  voted  down;  then  we  had  Mr. 
Guthrie's  proposition — that  was  the  Crit- 
tenden proposition  with  the  backbone  out 
of  it — and  Mr.  Johnson's  amendment,  which 
took  out  a  few  more  bones,  and  destroyed  its  shape, 
and  then  Mr.  Franklin's  amendment,  which  we 
may  call  a  boned  turkey — the  whole  thing  being 
a  sort  of  shapeless  mass,  without  a  bone  in  it — 
and  that  was  presented  and  Missouri  voted 
against  it,  I  giving  the  casting  vote  myself,  two 
of  my  colleagues  voting  one  way  and  two  anoth- 
er, none  of  the  delegation,  however,  being  in  fa- 
vor of  it.  I  desired  the  amendment  should  con- 
tain an  acknowdedgment  of  the  right  in  slave 
property  and  its  ample  protection,  but  not  one 
word  could  we  get  into  it  in  regard  to  master  or 
slave,  or  protection,  but  all  these  things  were 
stricken  out,  leaving  it  entirely  to  the  judicial  de- 
cisions ;  and  therefore  I  preferred  the  Constitution 
of  the  United  States  as  it  stands  now  to  any  sense- 
less interpretation  to  be  decided  hereafter.  These 
judicial  constructions  are  always  for  the  strong 
and  never  for  the  weak,  and  if  minorities  are  to 
be  protected,  it  must  be  by  specific  enactment. 
Majorities  can  always  find  sufficient  provisions  in 
the  Constitution  to  create  Banks  or  a  tariff,  or  de- 
stroy them,  but  at  the  same  time  not  find 
authority  for  that  protection  to  the  insti- 
tutions of  a  minority,  which  may  be  required. 
We  desired  these  guaranties  but  they  were  re- 
jected. In  rejecting  this  proposition  which 
was  offered  us,  we  did  not  necessarily  say  Mis- 
souri must  go  out  of  the  Union.  We  said  nothing  ., 
except  i;  was  better  to  live  under  the  Constitution 
that  we  had  than  to  make  up  patchwork  about  in- 
definite compromises.  I  desire  to  have  nothingof 
that  sort.  If  we  are  to  have  our  rights,  I  desire 
to  know  it  fully,  entirely  and  expressly;  but  not 
to  accept  this  proposition,  and  thereby  be  pre- 
cluded from  any  other  indemnity.  I  am  not  will- 
ing to  take  a  dry  bone.  I  voted  against  it,  and  I 
would  do  it  again.  These  were  the  motives  that 
governed  us  and  our  votes.  We  had  but  one  object 
in  view,  and  that  was  to  remove  this  question  entire- 
ly from  the  arena  of  politics,  and  give  such  guaran- 
tees to  slaveholding  States  that  are  now  in  to  re- 
main, and  induce  the  States  that  are  now  out 
eventually  to  come  back.    I  believe,  if  Congress 


25 


had  passed  such  an  amendment,  and  the  North 
had  acquiesced,  the  Southern  States  would  come 
in,  not  at  the  present,  perhaps,  hut  in  the  course 
of  time. 

The  Chair.  Under  the  resolution  offered  hy 
the  gentleman  from  Pike  (Mr.  Henderson)  the 
Chair  will  appoint  the  following  committee: 
Messrs.  Henderson,  Birch,  Howell,  Stewart, 
Wright,  Marvin  and  Knott. 

By  Mr.  Allen.  A  resolution  that  the  sessions 
of  the  Convention  shall  henceforth  commence  at 
10  o'clock  in  the  morning  and  3  o'clock,  p.  m. 

On  motion  of  Mr.  Sayer,  3  o'clock  was  strick- 
en out  and  the  resolution  adopted. 

By  Mr.  Allen.  Resolved,  That  the  Secretary 
of  this  Convention  he  authorized  to  furnish  pos- 
tage stamps  for  each  of  the  memhers  and  officers 
of  this  Convention. 

Mr.  Orr.  On  that  I  call  the  yeas  and  nays. 

Mr. .  I  move  that  the  blank  he  filled  with 

one  hundred. 

M.  Smith.  I  move  to  lay  the  resolution  on  the 
table.    Motion  sustained. 

By  Mr. .  A  resolution  that  all  resolutions 

offered  and  referred  to  the  Committee  on  Federal 
Relations  be  printed,  for  the  use  of  the  Conven- 
tion.   Adopted. 

By  Mr. .  A  resolution  that  Judge  Hough 

be  invited  to  address  the  Convention  on  the  sub- 
ject of  the  Peace  Congress. 

It  was  announced  that  Judge  Hough  was  in- 
disposed, and  that  his  address  would  be  post- 
poned for  the  present. 

By  Mr.  Birch.  Ordered,  that  the  Committee  on 
Federal  Relations,  and  the  Committee  to  which 
-was  referred  the  communication  of  the  State  of 
Georgia,  as  made  through  her  Commissioner  on 
yesterday,  have  leave  to  sit  during  the  session  of 
this  Convention.    Adopted. 

By  Mr.  Siieelt.  A  resolution  that  Gen.  Coal- 
ter  be  requested  to  address  the  Convention  on  the 
subject  of  the  Peace  Congress.  Adopted. 

Mr.  Coalter  came  forward  and  spoke  as  fol- 
lows : 

gen.  coalter's  remarks. 
I  thank  you,  Mr.  President  and  gentlemen  of 
the  Convention,  for  the  call  which  you  have  been 
pleased  to  make  upon  me.  I  came  here  with  no 
expectation  of  addressing  you,  but  deem  it  my 
duty  to  add  a  few  remarks  to  the  remarks  of  the 
gentleman  who  has  just  preceded  me,  and  who  has 
very  properly  given  you  a  history  of  the  proceed- 
ings of  the  Peace  Congress.  There  is  one  point 
in  which,  according  to  my  recollection,  he  does 
not  speak  exactly  according  to  the  record,  and 
that  is  this :  At  the  first  ballot,  the  proposition  of 
which  he  speaks,  was  rejected,  Missouri  voting  in 
the  negative.  There  was  then  a  motion  for  recon- 
sideration, which  was  carried,  and  on  that  recon- 
sideration Missouri  did  not  vote,  as  I  understand. 


(To  Col.  Doniphan)— I  am  correct  in  that,  I  am 
not? 

Mr.  Doniphan.  On  the  test  vote  as  to  whether 
Missouri  would  support  that  proposition  or  not, 
Missouri  voted  against  it.  On  the  motion  to  re- 
consider Missouri  did  not  vote  at  all,  according  to 
my  recolection.  When  the  question  came  up  a 
second  time,  Missouri  having  placed  herself  right 
on  the  record,  was  perfectly  willing  that  this 
proposition  should  go  to  the  country  (not  with 
her  sanction)  and  therefore  by  the  unanimous 
consent  of  her  delegation  she  declined  voting. 

Mr.  Coalter.  That  is  true.  If  Missouri  had 
voted  against  the  propositions  the  second  time, 
they  would  have  been  rejected.  But  we  all 
thought  that  it  was  better  that  they  should  go 
before  the  country  for  what  they  were  worth.  It 
was  the  best  we  could  get  there.  The  responsibi- 
lity thereafter  devolved  upon  Congress,  who  might 
accept  or  reject  them  or  on  the  people  who  might 
pass  upon  them.  So  that  there  was  no  diversion  of 
opinion  in  the  Missouri  Delegation,  as  would 
seem  from  the  first  statement  of  the  gentleman. 
Upon  the  final  vote  Missouri  was  unanimous  that 
the  proposition  should  go  before  the  people  for 
what  they  were  worth,  not  believing  them  to 
amount  to  anything,  but  still  holding  that  it  was 
the  best  they  could  get. 

Gentlemen  of  the  Convention:  My  colleague 
has  very  properly  stated  to  you,  that  we  felt  how 
important  was  the  occasion  which  had  called  us 
together,  in  Washington.  We  felt  the  condition 
of  the  country  was  such  that  peace  was  needed, 
in  order  to  bring  about  any  good  and  valuable 
results.  We  were  met  there  by  distinguished 
gentlemen  from  every  part  of  the  Union— twenty- 
one  States  in  all— and  we  found  one  great 
difficulty  in  the  beginning,  and  that  wa 
that  gentlemen  from  the  Northwest  had  come  to 
the  Convention,  thinking  themselves  pledged  to  a 
particular  platform  and  in  other  ways.  They 
thought  they  had  gained  a  great  victory  and  they 
must  reap  the  fruits  of  it.  That  seemed  the  pre- 
vailing sentiment.  They  said,  "We  are  well  satis- 
fied to  have  peace,  yet  it  must  be  peace  on  our 
own  terms;  and  although  we  are  willing  for 
peace,  yet  we  tell  you  at  the  same  time  that  we 
abhor  your  institutions."  Well,  gentlemen,  when 
any  of  us  could  get  the  floor,  we  defended  our 
institutions  with  what  ability  was  at  our  com- 
mand. We  told  them :  "This  is  a  prejudice  on 
your  part.  (And  I  must  say  that  in  this  position 
we  were  sustained  not  only  by  the  delegates  from 
the  South,  but  very  ably,  too,  by  some  of  the  dele- 
gates from  the  North.)  Your  hostility  to  slavery 
has  prejudiced  you,  and  the  sooner  you  get  rid 
of  that  prejudice  the  better."  We  asked  them 
moreover,  the  pregnant  question  "If  you  abhor 
our  institutions,  how  long  a  step  will  it  be  before 
you  abhor  us?  if  you  abhor  slavery,  how  long 
before  you  abhor  slaveholders?"    This,  we  rep- 


26 


resented  te  tliem,  was  the  very  point  which  had 
roused  the  Southern  mind.  It  was  the  idea  that 
they  were  hostile  to  us  in  feeling,  and  that  this 
hostility  could  not  be  reconciled,  but  would 
show  itself  again  and  again,  and  produce  per- 
petual dissension.  We  told  them  in  submitting  our 
propositions,  it  was  not  so  much  our  object  to 
gain  anything  valuable  from  them,  as  to  see  that 
the  Northern  mind  could  be  reached  upon  them, 
that  we  wanted  to  go  behind  them  to  their  con- 
stituents, that  we  wanted  to  have  something  upon 
which  the  Northern  mind  could  vote,  showing 
its  readiness  to  acknowledge  and  guarantee  the 
rights  of  the  people  of  the  South.  We  said :  Do 
not  let  us,  in  view  of  this  object,  quarrel  about 
little  things;  do  not  let  us  disagree  on  minor 
points ;  do  not  cavil  with  us  upon  the  ninth  part 
of  the  breadth  of  a  hair,  but  show  at  once  by 
your  action  that  you  do  recognize  the  rights  of 
the  South.  The  people  of  the  South,  of  which 
Missouri  is  a  part,  want  to  understand  whether 
they  can  live  in  peace  with  you  or  not  ?  If  there 
is  any  settled  hostility  on  the  part  of  the  North 
against  the  South,  then  we  are  two  people  inevi- 
tably;  and  God  forbid  we  should  be  two  people. 
We  desire  union;  we  desire  this  Union  shall 
subsist,  but  we  want  to  understand  that  you 
are  not  hostile  to  us,  and  therefore  we  ask 
you  to  come  forward  in  the  spirit  of  liberality 
of  magnanmity,  if  you  choose,  (because  you  are 
the  victorious  party)  and  grant  what  is  liberal, 
and  grant  it  freely  and  frankly.  Do  not  squab- 
ble with  us  about  the  ninth  part  of  the  breadth  of 
a  hair.  Let  us  get  at  the  minds  of  your  people  and 
let  them  vote  on  the  propositions,  and  in  that 
way  let  us  see  whether  you  will  regard  us  as  hos- 
tile or  as  friends!" 

Gentlemen,  in  that  spririt  we  were  not  met. 
They  would  cavil  with  us  about  everything;  be- 
lieving that  we  were  trying  all  the  time  to  take 
some  advantage  of  them;  insisting  upon  the  great 
victory,  and  that  they  must  reap  the  fruits  of  it, 
and  they  gave  us  nothing  better  than  the  resolu- 
tions my  colleague  has  spoken  of. 

I  am  sorry,  gentlemen,  that  those  resolutions, 
even  such  as  they  were,  were  not  sanctioned  by 
Congress.  Congress  did  not  choose  to  adopt 
them  and  what  will  now  be  adopted,  God  only 
knows.  It  is  with  you  to  say  what  course  Mis- 
souri will  take.  I  know  the  cause  of  Missouri  is 
in  good  and  able  hands.  Missouri  will  take  her 
course  for  herself,  not  feeling  herself  bound  to 
look  to  any  other  State,  but  looking  to  her  own 
true  interests.  And,  gentlemen,  it  has  been  well 
said  by  some  philosopher,  (Paley,  I  think,)  that 
nations  do  not  act  on  notions  of  honor,  but  upon 
considerations  of  their  true  interest.  I  should  say, 
however,  that  that  rule  is  subject  to  another  con- 
dition, and  that  is,  that  sometimes  the  truest  and 
best  interest  of  a  nation  is  to  assert  her  honor. 


While  I  am  upon  this  subject  another   idea 
suggests  itself  to  me.    It  is  this,  that  a  great  deal 
of  the   trouble  now    existing  in  the  Northern 
mind     is     based     on     its    blindness    to     the 
true    nature    of    our   institutions.    The  North- 
ern   people  forget  that  this  is  not   a   consoli- 
dated government.    They  forget  we  are  a  Con- 
federacy of  sovereign,  independent  States ;  and, 
therefore,  a  man  living  in  Massachusetts  is  apt 
to  feel  his  conscience  hurt  from  the  fact  that  sla- 
very is  existing  in  Missouri  or  Arkansas.    If  they 
fully  recognized  and  acted  upon  the  true  theory 
and   principle    of  our    Government    as  regards 
Southern  institutions — if  they  were  thoroughly 
imbued  with  the  idea  that  each  and  every  State 
is  entirely  sovereign,  they  would  not  be  so  sensi- 
tive with  regard  to  those  institutions.    I  do  not 
understand  that  the  Northern  mind  is  very  much 
troubled  about  the  existence  of  slavery  in  Turkey, 
or   Russia,  or  Cuba,  but  it  is   troubled  about  it 
in   the   United     States,  because   they   consider 
themselves     partly     responsible     for     its    ex- 
istence  in   the  United    States.    Now  let   them 
fully  recognize  the  true  theory  and  principle  of 
our  Government,  and  they  can  no  more  be  re- 
sponsible for  slavery  in  the  United  States  than 
they  can  for  slavery  in  Japan.    We  all,  gentle- 
men, have  been  so  much  in  the  habit  of  looking 
to  our  General  Government  with  pride  and  satis- 
faction, (and  it  was  right  that  we  should,  because 
it  has  been  a  grand  and  glorious  Government,) 
that  we  seem  to  forget  that  the  greatness  of  our 
Union  is  not  due  to  the  circumstance  that  we  are 
one  great  people,  but  that  we  are  thirty-three 
great   peoples.    We   are  not  one  great   people, 
but  we  are  now  thirty-four  great  peoples,  and  the 
greatness  results  from  the  fact  that  the  General 
Government  acts  as  the  agent  for  thirty-four  peo- 
ples. Let  us  fully  recognize  that  fact— the  fact  that 
we  are    composed   of  sovereign   peoples,  each 
having  its  own  control,  and  I    think  that  our 
Government  is  destined  to  go  on  harmorniously 
to  the  end  of  time ;  and,  gentlemen,  if  that  prin- 
ciple were  fully  acted  upon,  I  believe  the  South- 
ern States  would  be  satisfied,  and  we  could  ulti- 
mately hope  to  get  them  back.    Those  wise  men 
who  framed  our  institutions,  knew  that  a  con- 
solidated government  was  not  fit  for  a  widely 
extended   country,  and  by  a   wise  division  of 
power,  placing  in  the  hands  of  one  central  Fede- 
ral agency  the  administration  of  such  duties  as 
were  necessary  to  be  administered  for  the  benefit 
of  the  whole,  and  leaving  in  the  hands  of  the 
several  States  all  those  powers  necessary  for  their 
independence  and  self-control — I  say,  they  framed 
a  system  of  government  which  alone  is  competent 
to  extend  and  secure  the  blessings  of  freedom  over 
a  widely  extended  country.    I  can  see  only  one 
hope  of  reconstructing  this  Government,  and  that 
is  upon  the  basis  of  an  acknowledgment  of  the 
true  principles  of  our  Government.    I  hope  to 


27 


sec  us  come  back  to  that  yet.  Otherwise  there 
will  always  he  danger  of  minorities  being  op- 
pressed by  majorities,  and  the  strife  between  ra- 
rious  sections  of  the  country  will  never  cease. 
I  do  not  know  that  any  good  will  result  from  the 
action  of  the  Peace  Congress.  At  any  rate,  how- 
ever, we  who  met  together  freely  interchanged 
our  opinions  and  understood  ourseives  there. 
There  were  gentlemen  of  frankness  and  can- 
dor from  every  part  of  the  Union,  and  they 
expressed  themselves  freely  and  frankly. 
They  were  ho  doubt  extremely  desirous 
of  having  this  matter  satisfactorily  and 
amicably  arranged.  But  there  were  also  those 
who  did  not  want  to  act  promptly  upon  the  mat- 
ter. We  were  met  by  various  abstract  proposi- 
tions, which  we  had  to  ward  off,  because  they 
would  have  led  to  interminable  discussions.  One 
of  these  was  that  no  State  had  a  right  to  secede. 
We  naturally  asked,  "What  is  the  use  of  arguing 
such  a  question  as  that?  Here  we  sit  down  in 
solemn  conclave  and  consume  hours  and  perhaps 
days  in  trying  to  arrive  at  a  conclusion,  and  when 
we  have  Anally  arrived  at  a  conclusion,  we  look 
around  and  find  that  seven  States  have  already 
seceded.  Then  what  do  we  gain  by  the  discus- 
sion?" Other  abstract  propositions  were  offered 
to  carry  us  off  from  the  true  purpose  of  our 
meeting. 

Gentlemen  of  the  Convention,  I  have  thus 
hastily  thrown  before  you  a  few  suggestions 
which  have  occurred  to  me  as  the  result  of  my 
experience  in  Washington  City.  I  feel  very 
thankful  to  you  for  the  attention  with  which  you 
have  listened  to  me,  and  shall  not  trespass  any 
more  on  3-our  time  at  present.  I  may,  at  some 
future  time,  present  my  views  in  connection  with 
the  deliberations  of  the  Peace  Convention  to  the 
citizens  of  Missouri  more  fully  in  writing. 

By  Mr.  Long.  Resolved,  That  Hon.  John  B. 
Henderson,  be  requested  to  address  the  Conven- 
tion, on  the  subject  of  the  Union  to-day,  or  at 
any  other  time.    Adopted. 

By  Mr.  Pomeroy.  Resolved,  That  the  officers 
and  members  of  the  Present  General  Assembly, 
when  visiting  this  city  during  the  setting  of  the 
Convention,  be  invited  to  seats  within  the  bar. 
Adopted. 

By  Mr.  Linton.  Resolved,  That  Maj .  Wright 
of  St.  Louis,  be  requested  to  address  the  Conven- 
tion, on  the  subject  of  the  Union  now.    Adopted. 

Mr.  Wright.  I  trust  sir,  that  I  shall  have  an 
opportunity  to  address  this  honorable  body,  on 
the  important  subject  of  this  Union, — I  trust 
there  will  be  an  opportunity  to  go  into  the  nature 
of  our  Government— I  trust  there  will  be  an  op- 
portunity to  elaborate  the  idea  set  forth  in  the 
thirty-four  stars  upon  that  banner  and  to  show 
that  there  is  something  more  in  them  than  the 
mere  motto,  E  Pluribus  Unum.  But  I  rise  at 
present  only  to  cay,that  I  do  not  desire  to  addres 


the  Convention  at  this  time,  but  will  hold  my- 
self in  reserve,  to  aid  in  supporting 
the  standard  of  my  country.  In  regard  to  all 
doctrines  calculated  to  sap,  undermine  and  over- 
throw all  government,  I  will  reserve  to  myself 
these  questions,  and  give  my  views  upon  them  at 
the  proper  time. 

Mr.  Henderson.  I  return  my  thanks  for  the 
honor  conferred  upon  me  by  the  passage  of  that 
resolution.  Like  my  friend,  Major  Wright,  I 
shall  reserve  to  myself,  and  every  member  of  the 
Convention  will  reserve  the  right,  when  these 
questions  come  before  the  Convention.  And  I 
trust  every  member  of  this  Convention,  sent  by 
his  constituents  to  his  seat  here,  will  feel  it  not 
only  his  privilege,  but  his  duty,  to  aid  in  giving 
to  the  State  of  Missouri  the  opinions  of  every 
part  of  the  State  of  Missouri.  Sir,  I  come  here 
from  a  portion  of  the  State  that  is,  perhaps, 
exposed  more  than  any  other  portion  —  or, 
at  least,  as  much  as  any  other  portion- 
to  those  very  troubles  that,  unfortunately, 
have  brought  about  the  difficulties  in  which 
the  country  is  now  involved.  Sir,  I  have 
come  here,  bearing  with  the  two  aged  gentle- 
men who  are  with  me,  feeling  loyal  to  the  Con- 
stitution of  our  country,  andloyal  to  the  great 
interests  of  this  wide  spread  land  of  ours.  I  am 
here  determined  to  do  anything  in  my  power  to 
preserve  and  perpetuate  the  liberties  handed 
down  to  us  by  our  forefathers.  And,  sir,  so  help 
me  God,  I  shall  do  nothing  while  a  member  up- 
on this  floor,  that  shall  be  tinctured  with  disloy- 
alty to  the  Federal  Constitution,  (cheering,  check- 
ed by  the  President,)  when  I  say  that,  I  say 
further,  that  allied  to  the  interests  of  Missouri, 
allied  to  the  interests  of  the  South,  I  feel  when  I 
look  to  the  protection  of  the  interests  of  Missouri, 
when  I  look  to  the  protection  of  the  institutions 
of  the  South,  which  gave  me  birth,  that  I  cannot 
be  disloyal  to  that  Constitution,  without  being  a 
traitor,  and  one  who  is  determined  at  heart  to  de- 
stroy the  institutions  of  this  State  and  the  entire 
South.  These  sir,  are  my  sentiments,  and  believing 
that— believing  that  if  this  Union  of  ours  shall 
be  dissolved— believing  that  when  hostile  Confede- 
racies shall  be  built  up  amongst  the  present 
happy,  free  and  prosperous  States  of  the  Union, 
thac  nothing  but  war — eternal  and  everlasting 
war  and  bloodshed  will  be  the  consequence— and 
believing  instead  of  protection  to  constitutional 
rights  that  the  last  vestige  of  hunan  liberty  will 
have  passed  away — that,  instead  of  being  secure 
in  our  property,  that  our  lives  and  liberties  will 
become  the  mere  scoff  and  scorn  of  the  world,  I 
have  come  here,  sir,  determined  to  live  true  to  the 
Union  of  these  States,  and  to  do  everything  in 
my  power  to  bring  back  our  erring  sisters  of  the 
South.  I  have  come  here  determined  to  protect 
their  interests,  and,  sir,  when  that  shall  have 
been  done,  I  want  them  once  more  to  return  to 


*>* 


the  happy  family  of  States,  for  in  that  happy 
family  alone  can  be  the  preservation  of  every 
right  we  enjoy. 

Sir,  I  again  return  my  thanks  to  this  Conven- 
tion, and  shall  improve  the  opportunity  at  some 
future  time  to  express  my  views  more  fully. 

Mr.  Gamble.  I  move  that  the  Convention  ad- 
journ till  10  o'clock,  a.  m.,  to-morrow.  Motion 
sustained. 


FIFTH     DAY. 

St.  Louis,  March  6th,  1861. 

Convention  met  at  10  o'clock,  a.  m. 

Mr.  President  Price  in  the  chair. 

Prayer  was  offered  by  the  Chaplain. 

The  Journal  was  read  and  approved. 

Mr.  Pomeroy.  Mr.  President,  I  desire  to  say 
that  my  colleague,  Mr.  Hill,  from  Pulaski,  has 
arrived. 

The  Chair.  Mr.  Hill  will  please  come  forward 
and  be  sworn.  If  Judge  Breckinridge  is  present, 
he  will  oblige  the  Convention  by  administering 
the  oath. 

On  motion,  Col.  Grover,  Sergeant- at- Arms 
elect,  was  also  requested  to  come  forward  and  be 
sworn. 

Judge  Breckinridge  thoreupon  administered 
the  oath  to  both. 

The  Chair.  (To  the  Sergeant-at-Arms.)  You 
will  take  your  position  at  the  lobby  and  see  that 
order  is  preserved;  and  that  no  cheering  is  in- 
dulged in  on  any  occasion ;  and  that  gentlemen 
of  the  lobby  do  not  injure  the  furniture  by  placing 
their  feet  upon  it. 

Mr.  Hatcher  offered  the  following  resolution : 

Whereas  :  It  is  the  deliberate  opinion  of  this 
Convention  that,  unless  the  unhappy  controversy 
which  now  divides  the  States  of  this  Confederacy 
shall  be  satisfactorily  adjusted,  a  permanent  dis- 
solution of  the  Union  is  inevitable;  and  this  Con- 
vention, representing  the  wishes  of  the  people  of 
Missouri,  is  desirous  of  employing  every  reason- 
able means  to  avert  so  dire  a  calamity,  and  deter- 
mined to  make  a  final  effort  to  restore  the  Union 
and  Constitution  in  the  spirit  in  which  they  were 
established  by  the  fathers  of  the  Republic.  There- 
fore, 

Resolved,  That  on  behalf  of  the  State  of  Mis- 
souri, an  invitation  is  hereby  extended  to  the 
States  of  Delaware,  Maryland,  Virginia,  North 
Carolina,  Tennessee,  Kentucky  and  Arkansas,  to 
unite  with  Missouri  in  an  earnest  effort  to  adjust 
the  present  unhappy  controversies  in  the  spirit  in 
which  the  Constitution  was  originally  formed, 
and  consistently  with  its  principles,  so  as  to  se- 
cure to  the  people  of  the  slaveholding  States  ade- 
quate guarantees  for  the  security  of  their  rights, 
and  for  this  purpose  to  appoint  Commissioners  to 


meet  on  the  15th  day  of  April  next,  in  the  city  of 
Nashville,  Tennessee,  similar  Commissioners  ap- 
pointed by  Missouri,  to  consider,  and  if  practica- 
ble, agree  upon  some  united  course  of  action  to 
be  pursued  by  said  States  in  securing  these  ends. 

Resolved,  That  General  A.  W.  Doniphan,  A. 
II.  Buckner,  J.  D.  Coalter,  W.  P.  Johnson,  Har- 
rison Hough,  H.  R.  Gamble  and  N.  W.  Watkins, 
are  hereby  appointed  Commissioners,  whose 
duty  it  shall  be  when  notified  by  the  President  of 
this  Convention  that  two  or  more  of  said  States 
shall  have  accepted  this  invitation,  to  repair  to 
the  city  of  Nashville,  Tenn.,  on  the  day  desig- 
nated, to  meet  such  Commissioners  as  may  be  ap- 
pointed by  any  two  or  more  of  said  States  in  ac- 
cordance with  the  invitation  herein  contained. 

Resolved,  That  if  said  Commissioners,  after 
full  and  free  conference,  shall  agree  on  some 
plan  of  adjustment,  or  any  course  of  action  to 
be  pursued  by  the  said  States,  in  accordance  with 
these  resolutions,  the  Commissioners  hereby  ap- 
pointed shall  report  the  same  to  an  adjourned 
session  of  this  Convention,  to  be  held  at  such 
time  as  the  Convention  may  hereafter  determine. 

Resolved,  That  the  President  of  this  Conven- 
tion send  copies  of  these  resolutions  to  the  Exe- 
cutives of  the  several  States  herein  mentioned, 
with  the  request  that  the  said  Executives  inform 
him,  as  soon  as  practicable,  of  the  action  of  their 
respective  States  in  this  regard,  and  that  when 
informed  that  two  or  more  of  said  States  have  re- 
sponded to  this  invitation,  he  shall  forthwith  in- 
form the  Commissioners  herein  appointed  of  that 
fact, 

Mr.  Hatcher — I  do  not  know,  sir,  that  the 
Chair  would  decide  that  these  resolutions  as  a 
matter  of  course  go  to  the  Committee  on  Federal 
Relations,  inasmuch  as  one  of  them  requires  the 
appointment  of  Commissioners  who  are  on  the 
Committee  on  Federal  Relations.  The  members 
of  that  Committee  are  thereby  interested  in  these 
resolutions,  and  I  therefore  move  that  they  be  re- 
ferred to  a  special  committee  of  five. 

Mr.  Bartlett— I  second  the  motion. 

Mr.  Hall  of  Buchanan — If  the  motion  is  re- 
jected, I  suppose  the  resolutions  will  go  as  a  mat- 
ter of  course,  to  the  Committee  on  Federal  Rela- 
tions ? 

The  Chair.  That  will  be  the  order  of  proceed- 
ing. 

Mr.  Hatcher.  My  reasons  for  making  the 
motion,  I  hope,  will  be  understood.  I  made  it 
merely  from  the  fact  that  members  of  that  com- 
mittee are  interested  in  the  passage  of  these  reso- 
lutions and  therefore  will  feel  some  delicacy  in 
acting  upom  them  impartially. 

The  Chair.  The  question  will  be  on  dispens- 
ing with  the  rule  requiring  the  resolutions  to  go 
to  the  Committee  on  Federal  Relations. 

Mr.  Broadhead.    I  desire  to  hear  the  motion. 

The  Chair  re-stated  the  motion. 


29 


Mr.  Broadhead.  I  understand  it  requires  a 
two-thirds'  vote  to  carry  a  motion  to  suspend  the 
rules. 

The  Chair.    Yes  sir. 

The  motion  to  suspend  the  rules  was  put  and 
rejected. 

The  Chair.  The  resolution  will  go,  as  a  matter 
of  course,  to  the  Committee  on  Federal  Relations. 

Mr.  Sayer  offered  the  following  resolution : 

That  this  Convention  expresses  the  senti- 
ment of  the  people  of  Missouri  in  declaring  their 
undiminished  and  unalterable  attachment  to  the 
Union  of  these  States  under  our  glorious  Consti- 
tution. 

That  a  guarantee  of  our  rights  upon  the  sub- 
ject of  slavery,  giving  equality  to  the  citizen,  and 
protection  to  his  property,  that  shall  secure  us 
against  the  threatened  perversion  of  the  Consti- 
tution of  the  United  States,  from  the  interpreta- 
tion which  it  has  received  in  all  the  Departments 
of  the  Federal  Government  up  to  the  present  time, 
is  indispensably  necessaiy,  and  is  indispensably 
necessary  to  the  existence  of  the  Union  of  these 
States— without  guaranties  upon  that  subject,  to 
that  effect,  our  Constitution  and  Union  could  not 
have  been  made,  and  they  cannot  exist  without 
them. 

That  in  the  construction  of  our  government, 
the  idea  of  the  use  of  force,  as  between  the 
States,  in  holding  them  together,  was  wholly  dis- 
carded—it will  not  only  not  avail  for  that  purpose 
but  the  undertaking  of  it  would  be  usurpation. 

That  the  Convention  appoint Commis- 
sioners, and  that  we  recommend  that  the  States 
of  Delaware,  Maryland,  Virginia,  North  Caroli- 
na, Tennessee  and  Kentucky,  appoint  Commis- 
sioners to  meet  at in  the  State  of on 

the day  of to  confer  together  and  set  forth 

such  amendments  to  the  Constitution,  as  will  be 
sufficient  for  our  honor  and  the  protection  of  our 
rights,  and  to  urge  upon  the  States  which  have 
seceded,  and  upon  the  Northern  States,  to  accede 
to,  and  adopt  them. 

The  Chair.  The  resolutions  will  go  to  the 
Committee  on  Federal  Relations. 

Mr.  Dunn  offered  the  following  resolution : 

Resolved,  By  the  people  of  the  State  of  Mis- 
souri in  Convention  assembled,  that  we  are  in 
favor  of  the  adjustment  of  our  national  troubles, 
upon  the  basis  of  the  amendments  to  the  Consti- 
tution of  the  United  States,  proposed  by  Senator 
Crittenden,  thereby  arresting  the  progress  of  revo- 
lution, securing  our  constiutional  rights  in  the 
Union,  and  removing  forever  from  the  arena  of 
party  politics,  the  dangerous  sectional  questions 
that  have  brought  us  to  the  verge  of  ruin. 

Referred  to  the  Committee  on  Federal  Relations. 

Mr.  Smith  suggested  that  the  Secretary  read 
the  name  of  each  mover  of  a  resolution  when 
reading  the  resolution. 

Mr.  Woolfolk  offered  the  following: 


Resolved,  That  the  present  crisis  demands  that 
the  rights  of  the  slave  States  should  be  secured 
to  them  by  amendments  to  the  Constitution,  and 
that  this  Convention  recommends  to  the  Legis- 
lature of  Missouri,  that  they  apply  to  Congress 
to  call  a  General  Convention  of  all  the  States,  in 
the  manner  provided  by  the  Constitution,  for 
the  purpose  of  making  such  amendments  there- 
to as  will  secure  the  rights  of  the  slave  States, 
restore  peace,  and  relieve  the  Southern  mind  of 
apprehensions  for  the  future. 

Referred  as  above. 

Mr.  Long  offered  the  following : 

Resolved,  That  the  Seargent-at-Arms  furnish 
each  member  of  this  Convention,  except  the  St. 
Louis  delegation,  with  twenty-five  postage 
stamps. 

Mr.  Long.  I  am  aware,  Mr.  President,  that  a 
similar  resolution  was  voted  down,  yesterday, 
but  I  cannot  but  think  that  members  from  the 
country  are  desirous  of  corresponding  with  their 
constituents  and  families,  and  inasmuch  as  the 
motion  to  table,  yesterday,  was  made  by  a  mem- 
ber from  St.  Louis,  I  now  deem  it  proper  to  re- 
new the  resolution,  and  hope  that  it  will  pass. 
Let  us  not  deprive  others  of  a  privilege  which, 
if  we  were  away  from  home,  we  should  not  wish 
to  be  deprived  of  ourselves. 

Mr.  Foster.  Mr.  President,  I  do  not  think 
that  this  resolution  ought  to  pass.  We  men  that 
live  out  in  the  backwoods  are  under  many  obli- 
gations to  our  friends  here,  but  still  we  are  not 
seventy-five  cents  men.  [Laughter.]  We  care 
just  as  little  for  postage  stamps  as  any  other  gen- 
tlemen, and,  therefore,  I  move  that  this  resolntion 
be  laid  on  the  table. 

Motion  sustained  and  resolution  tabled. 

By  Mr.  Stewart.  Resolved,  That,  in  the  opin- 
ion of  this  Convention  a  Convention  of  the  peo- 
ple of  the  border  States,  for  the  purpose  of  pre- 
senting a  plan  of  compromise,  would  be  the  most 
sure  and  efficacious  method  of  adjustment,  in  a 
fraternal  spirit,,  of  the  alarming  discords  which 
threaten  the  disruption  of  the  Government. 

Referred  to  the  Committee  on  Federal  Relations. 

By  Mr.  Linton.  Resolved,  That  there  exists  no 
adequate  cause  why  Missouri  should  secede  from 
the  Union,  and  she  will  do  all  she  can  to  restore 
peace  to  the  same  by  satisfactory  compromises. 

Same  reference. 

By  Mr.  Hendricks.  Resolved,  That  at  the 
time  of  the  adoption  of  the  Federal  Constitution 
it  was  the  understanding  and  intention  of  the  peo- 
ple of  the  United  States  that  they  were  thereby 
united  together  for  all  the  purposes  expressed  and 
contemplated  in  that  instrument,  as  one  people, 
inseparable  and  forever. 

Resolved,  That  the  provisions  of  the  Federal 
Constitution  were  understood  and  intended  by  the 
people  of  the  United  States  to  be  the  supreme 
law  of  the  land,  and  not  a  mere  compact  and  for 


so 


violations  and  infractions  thereof  by  the  Federal 
or  any  Stale  government,  disintegration  was  not 
contemplated,  but  remedies,  as  provided  in  the 
Constitution,  to  be  sought  and  obtained  in  the 
Union. 

Resolved,  That  while  the  right  of  revolution 
for  adequate  cause  is  not  denied,  yet  the  Consti- 
tution of  the  United  States  and  acts  of  Congress 
made  in  pursuance  thereof,  for  the  admission  of 
new  States  into  the  Union  as  integral  parts  of  the 
United  Siates,  being  the  supreme  law  of  the  land, 
no  ordinance  of  secession  adopted  by  a  State 
government  can  abrogate  them. 

Resolved,  That  the  ordinances  of  secession 
adopted  by  several  States  of  the  Union,  are 
unauthorized  in  law  and  without  adequate  cause 
in  fact,  and  when  we  are  called  upon  to  follow 
their  example,  ii  is  right  and  proper  to  consider 
the  legality  of  doing  so. 

Resolved,  That  the  action  of  several  of  our 
sister  States  in  adopting  ordinances  of  secession, 
is  no  justifiable  cause  for  Missouri  to  secede. 

Mr.  Irwin.  I  suggest  that  when  the  Secretary 
reads  a  resolution,  he  announce  th®  name  of  the 
gentleman  offering  it. 

The  Chair.  It  will  be  so  ordered  unless  objec- 
tion is  made. 

By  Mr.  Eitchey.  Resolved,  That  that  portion 
of  the  eighteenth  rule,  by  which  the  Convention  is 
governed  in  its  action,  requiring  each  member  to 
read  his  proposition  distinctly  to  the  Convention, 
be,  and  the  same  is  hereby  rescinded.  As  many 
of  us  have  bad  voices  and  as  we  cannot  be  dis- 
tinctly heard  when  we  read  our  propositions,  and 
as  the  nineteenth  rule  makes  it  the  duty  of  our 
Secretary,  (who  has  a  clear  and  distinct  voice 
which  can  be  heard  distinctly  through  the  Hall,) 
to  read  each  proposition  before  it  can  be  acted 
upon  by  the  Convention :  I  therefore,  sir,  offer 
this  resolution. 

The  resolution  was  adopted. 

By  Mr.  Foster.  Whereas,  the  State  of 
Georgia,  in  Convention  assembled,  have  appoint- 
ed Rufus  J.  Glenn  as  a  Commissioner  to  the  State 
of  Missouri  to  present  the  ordinance  of  secession 
of  the  State  of  Georgia  and  invite  the  co- 
operation of  the  State  of  Missouri  in  the 
formation  of  a  Southern  Confederacy,  and: 
Whereas,  By  invitation  of  this  Convention, 
said  Rufus  J.  Glenn  appeared  in  Convention  and 
presented,  as  Commissioner,  the  ordinance  of  se- 
cession of  the  State  of  Georgia;  therefore,  be  it 

Resolved,  By  the  people  of  the  State  of  Mis- 
souri in  Convention  assembled,  that  we  respect- 
fully decline  considering  the  ordinance  of  seces- 
sion of  the  State  of  Georgia,  as  to  the  propriety 
of  forming  a  Southern  Confederacy.  Referred  to 
the  Committee  on  Federal  Relations. 

By  Mr.  Stewart.  Resolved,  That  in  the  opin- 
ion of  this  Convention,  no  overt  act  has  been 
committed  by  the  General  Government  sufficient 


to  justify  either  secession,  nullification  or  revolu- 
tion.   Same  reference. 

By  Mr.  Turner.  Resolved,  That  a  committee 
of  seven  members  of  this  Convention,  one  from 
each  Congressional  District,  be  appointed,  to 
whom  shall  be  referred  all  proposed  alterations  of 
or  amendments  to  the  Constitution  of  the  State  or 
Missouri.  I  suppose  that  it  is  in  the  power  of  the 
Convention  to  alter  or  amend  the  Constitution  of 
the  State  of  Missouri,  in  case  they  deem  it  proper 
to  do  so,  and  I  therefore  hope  the  resolution  will 
be  adopted,  m  order  that  if  such  amendments  are 
proposed,  they  can  first  be  acted  upon  by  a  com- 
mittee. 

Mr.  Sayer.  I  do  not  think  it  was  contemplated 
that  we  should  either  alter  or  amend  the  Consti- 
tution of  Missouri,  and  I  therefore  move  to  lay 
the  resolution  on  the  table. 

Mr.  Turner.  I  demand  the  yeas  and  nays. 

The  vote  was  as  follows : 

Ayes— Messrs.  Bass,  Bast,  Birch,  Breckin- 
ridge, Bridge,  Brown,  Cayce,  Chenault,  Collier, 
Comingo,  Doniphan,  Donnell,  Douglass,  Drake, 
Dunn,  Frayser,  Flood,  Foster,  Gamble,  Gantt, 
Givens,  Gorin,  Hall  of  Buchanan,  Hall  of  Ran- 
dolph, Harbin,  Hatcher,  Hill,  Hitchcock,  Holmes, 
Holt,  Hough,  Howell,  Hudgins,  Irwin,  Jamison, 
Kidd,  Knott,  Linton,  Long,  Marmaduke,  Matson, 
McCormack,  McDowell,  McFerran,  Morrow, 
Moss,  Noell,  Norton,  Or,  Phillips,  Pomeroy, 
Ray,  Ritchey,  Ross,  Rowland,  Sawyer,  Sayer, 
Scott,  Shackelford  of  Howard,  Shackelford  of  St. 
Louis,  Sheeley,  Smith  of  Linn,  Stewart,  Tindall, 
Watkins,  Wilson,  Woodson,  Woolfolk,  Vanbus- 
kirk,  Mr.  President— 70. 

Noes— Messrs.  Allen,  Bartlett,  Bogy,  Broad- 
head,  Bush,  Calhoun,  Eitzen,  Gravelly,  Hen- 
dricks, How,  Isbell,  Jackson,  Johnson,  Leeper, 
Marvin,  Maupin,  McClurg,  Rankin,  Smith  of  St. 
Louis,  Turner,  Waller,  Welch,  Wright,  Zimmer- 
man— 24. 

The  resolution  was  laid  on  the  table — ayes  70, 
noes  24. 

By  Mr.  Dunn.  Resolved,  By  the  people  of 
Missouri  in  Convention  assembled,  that  we  are 
opposed  to  military  coercion  for  the  purpose  of 
subjugating  those  States  that  have  withdrawn 
from  the  Union,  and  we  would  regard  such  an  at- 
tempt at  military  coercion  under  any  pretext 
whatever,  as  an  act  of  war  which,  if  successful, 
would  lead  to  the  establishment  of  a  military  des- 
potism on  the  ruins  of  the  Constitution. 

Resolved,  That  we  are  opposed  to  any 
act  of  war  against  the  United  States,  by 
any  of  the  States  that  have  withdrawn  from  the 
Union.  The  preservation  of  the  Union  depends 
upon  the  preservation  of  peace.  Referred  to  the 
Committee  on  Federal  Relations. 

By  Mr.  Allen  :  Resolved,  That  the  border  free 
and  slave  States  be  requested  to  meet  in  Conven- 
tion and  co-operate  together  in  the  settlement  of 


31 


the  questions  now  agitating  the  country.  Referred 
to  Committee  on  Federal  Relations. 

By  Mr.  Orr  :  Resolved,  That,  we  have  the  best 
Government  in  the  world,  and  intend  to  keep  it. 
[Applause,  checked  by  the  President.] 

Mr.  Smith.— I  move  the  adoption  of  that  reso- 
lu  ion. 

The  Chair.— It  will  be  referred  to  the  Com- 
mittee on  Federal  Relations. 

By  Mr.  McFerran  :  Resolved,  That  Missouri 
deplores  the  existing  sectional  strife  and  aliena- 
tion existing  between  the  North  and  the  South, 
and  regards  the  same  as  inimical  to  the  dearest 
rights  of  Missouri,  and  to  the  peace  and  perpe- 
tuity of  the  Federal  Union. 

Resolved,  That  Missouri,  as  an  integral  part 
of  the  great  West,  declares  her  fealty  and  attach- 
ment to  our  union  of  interest  and  action,  and  in- 
vites her  sister  States  of  the  West  to  ignore  the 
dogmas  of  New  England  on  the  one  hand,  and 
the  Gulf  States  on  the  other,  and  to  at  once  in- 
augurate a  Western  policy,  loyal,  to  the  Federal 
Constitution  and  the  Union  of  the  States. 

Referred  to  the  Committee  on  Federal  Rela- 
tions. 

By  Mr.  Birch.  Ordered,  That  the  Inaugural 
Address  of  the  President  of  the  United  States  be 
committed  to  a  committee  of  the  whole  house, 
to  be  designated  a  Committee  of  the  Whole  on 
the  State  of  the  Union. 

I  do  not  desire  to  have  the  resolution  deferred, 
Mr.  President.  In  the  first  place,  by  the  action 
of  this  Convention,  a  Committee  on  Federal  Rela- 
tions has  been  appointed  to  receive  all  proposi- 
tions respecting  the  difficulties  that  now  exist, 
and  while  these  propositions  are  in  the  hands  of 
that  committee  the  great  body  of  the  Convention 
is  cut  off  from  information  which  otherwise 
might  be  derived  from  the>  passage  of  this  resolu- 
tion. If  this  resolution  be  agreed  to,  to  go 
into  a  Committee  of  the  Whole  on  the  State  of  the 
Union,  then  the  President's  Message  and  the 
whole  subject  will  be  in  order  for  discussion,  and 
we  can  attain  the  same  end,  and  come  to  a  mate- 
terial  understanding  with  each  other. 

2d.  The  Convention,  I  apprehend,  will  have 
seen  that  we  have  little  or  nothing  to  do,  nearly 
all  its  business  having  been  referred  to  the  Com- 
mittee. 

3d.  I  suppose  the  message  of  the  President  of 
the  United  States,  and  the  views  he  entertains,  are 
more  important  to  be  considered  just  now,  or  of 
~"iite  as  much  importance,  in  consideration  of  the 
amplications  that  surround  us,  as  any  or  every 
thing  else.  If  there  be  any  objection  to  this 
course,  I  shall  most  certainly  listen  to  it,  but  I  am 
not  able  to  perceive  how  it  will  elicit  any  objection 
whatever. 

Mr.  Broadhead.  I  hope  the  resolution  will 
not  be  adopted.  The  House  appointed 
a     Committee      to     whom     all     such      sub- 


jects have  been  and  will  be  referred, 
and  when  that  Committee  makes  its  report,  this 
body  will  have  something  tangible  upon  which  it 
can  act.  I  should  be  opposed  at  this  time  to  take 
up  any  proposition  of  this  character  which  may 
not  be  submitted  to  us  by  that  Committee,  and  to 
go  into  any  indiscriminate  discussion  upon  politi- 
cal subjects  such  as  would  be  elicited  by  the 
adoption  of  this  resolution.  I  hope  therefore  the 
resolution  will  not  be  adopted. 

Mr.  Birch.  I  ought  to  say  a  single  word  in 
response.  I  confess  my  entire  indifference  so  far 
as  I  am  concerned  whether  the  resolution  is 
adopted  or  not,  but  it  seemed  to  me  that  we  might 
as  well  come  to  an  understanding  now  in  relation 
to  the  doctrines  announced  and  indicated  in  the 
President's  message.  The  Convention  would 
thus  obtain  the  views  in  relation  to  this  entire 
question  of  those  complications  without  waiting 
for  the  Committee  to  report.  With  these  remarks 
I  am  indifferent  as  to  the  result. 

Mr.  Foster.  I  do  not  design  to  enter  into  a 
political  discussion.  I  came  here  for  a  better 
purpose.  I  can  see,  in  my  judgment,  no  good 
that  will  result  from  the  investigation  of  the  sub- 
ject mentioned  in  the  resolution.  My  opinion  is, 
it  would  bring  about  difficulties,  and  I  therefore 
move  to  lay  the  resolution  on  the  table. 

Mr.  Birch.  To  save  all  trouble  I  will,  by 
leave,  withdraw  the  resolution. 
The  resolution  was  withdrawn. 
Mr.  Wilson.  Resolved,  That  the  Committee 
on  Accounts  be  instructed  to  allow  the  door- 
keeper and  Sergeant-at-Arms,  each,  five  dollars 
per  day,  and  the  two  pages,  each,  two  and  one 
half  dollars  per  day  for  services. 

Mr.  Broadhead.  Before  the  vote  is  taken,  I 
call  the  attention  of  the  Convention  to  the  law 
under  which  the  Convention  is  called. 

The  Chair.    I  think  the  resolution  is  in  ac- 
cordance to  the  law,  or  I  should  have  called  at- 
tention to  it. 
The  resolution  was  adopted. 
By  Mr.  Shackelford,  of  Howard :    Resolved, 
That  the  Committee  on  Accounts  be  instructed  to 
allow  the  Chaplain  of  the  Convention  five  dollars 
per  day  during  the  sitting  of  the  Convention. 
Adopted. 

By  Mr.  Turner  :  Resolved,  That  the  people 
of  Missouri  deplore  the  existence  in  some  of  the 
Northern  States  of  acts  known  as  personal  liberty 
bills,  designed  to  nullify  the  fugitive  slave  law, 
and  giving  the  Southern  States  just  cause  of  com- 
plaint for  the  violation  of  the  compact  existing 
between  the  States;  which  personal  liberty  bills 
are  admitted  to  be  unconstitutional  by  the  Execu- 
tives of  the  States  having  such  laws;  and  we 
equally  deplore  the  state  of  feeling  in  the  South, 
and  the  passages  of  ordinances  of  secession,  by 
which  the  Southern  States  declare  themselves 
absolved,  from  the  obligations  and  bonds  imposed 


32 


upon  them  by  the  Constitution  of  the  United 
States. 

Referred  to  the  Committee  on  Federal  Relations. 

Mr.  Pomeroy.  I  believe  this  body  invited 
Judge  Hough  to  address  the  Convention  on  yes- 
terday, and  that  he  failed  to  do  so  on  account  of 
ill  health.  I  hope  we  shall  have  the  pleasure  of 
hearing  him  to-day. 

Mr.  Hough.  You  will  excuse  me,  sir,  until  I 
recover  from  my  hoarseness,  as  I  speak  with 
great  difficulty. 

Mr.  Norton.  As  there  is  nothing  before  the 
Convention,  I  move  we  now  adjourn. 

The  Convention,  then,  at  11  1-2  o'clock,  a.  m., 
adjourned  until  10  o'clock  to-morrow. 


SIXTH    DAY. 

St.  Louis,  March  7th,  1861. 

Convention  met  at  10  o'clock,  a.  m. 

Mr.  President  Price  in  the  chair. 

Prayer  was  offered  by  the  Chaplain. 

The  journal  was  read  and  approved. 

Mr.  Norton.  I  desire  to  offer  a  resolution. 

The  Chair.  The  resolution  is  in  order,  and  the 
Secretary  will  read  it. 

The  Secretary  read  as  follows : 

Resolved,  That  it  is  the  opinion  of  this  Con- 
vention that  the  country  and  Confederacy  could 
at  once  be  relieved  from  its  present  deplorable  con- 
dition, if  the  great  conservative  heart  of  the  peo- 
ple of  all  sections  could  be  appealed  to  independ- 
ent of  the  influence  of  demagogues,  fanatics,  and 
politicians  who  sprung  the  present  tests  for  their 
own  benefit.  And  thus  believing,  we  suggest 
that  the  Legislature  of  the  State  of  Missouri  re- 
commend the  Crittenden  compromise  proposi- 
tions to  Congress  as  amendments  to  the  Federal 
Constitution;  or  recommend  Congress  to  call  a 
National  Convention,  to  which  these  or  similar 
propositions  shall  be  submitted  as  amendments 
to  the  present  Constitution. 

Mr.  Norton.  I  desire  to  inquire,  sir,  whether 
it  has  been  determined  that  resolutions  of  this 
character  should  go  to  the  Committee  on  Federal 
Relations  as  a  matter  of  course,  without  debate. 
I  do  not  desire,  sir,  to  discuss  these  resolutions 
myself.  I  have  introduced  them  more  for  the 
purpose  of  eliciting  discussion,  as  there  may  be, 
and  doubtless  are,  gentlemen  of  this  Convention 
desirous  to  discuss  the  points  that  are  brought 
forward  in  these  resolutions.  I  am  aware  that  we 
have  adopted  a  resolution  requiring  propositions 
of  this  description  to  go  to  the  Committee  on 
Federal  Relations.  The  question  to  be  deter- 
mined is,  whether  these  resolutions  go  there  as  a 
matter  of  course  without  debate,  or,  whether  they 
are  subject  to  debate.  I  desire  that  point  to  be 
now  determined  by  the  Chair. 


The  Chair.  Some  few  days  since  the  Con 
vention  adopted  a  resolution  requiring  that  such 
resolutions  should  be  referred  to  the  Committee 
on  Federal  Relations.  That  resolution,  however, 
does  not  say  that  they  shall  be  referred  without 
debate.  If  gentlemen  choose  to  discuss  the  reso- 
lutions, I  suppose  they  are  at  liberty  to  do  so. 

No  one  seeming  desirous  to  debate  the  resolu- 
tion at  present,  the  Chair  ordered  its  reference. 

Mr.  Zimmerman  offered  the  following  resolu- 
tion, which  was  referred  : 

Resolved,  That  this  Convention  appoint  a  Com- 
mittee of  five,  to  confer  with  the  border  slave  and 
free  States,  upon  the  subject  of  the  preservation 
of  the  Union  upon  just  and  proper  principles, 
and  that  a  Convention  of  the  border  slave  and 
free  States,  be  called  for  the  purpose  of  forming 
a  Middle  Confederacy,  in  the  event  of  the  failure 
of  the  preservation  of  the  present  Union. 

Mr.  Shackelford,  of  Howard,  offered  the 
following : 

Resolved,  That  each  member  of  the  Conven- 
tion be  requested  to  hand  to  the  Committee  on 
Accounts,  without  delay,  a  statement  of  the  num- 
ber of  miles  traveled  by  each  to  the  city  of  Jeffer- 
son, that  the  same  may  be  examined  and  a  prop- 
er allowance  per  mileage  re  made  by  the  Com- 
mittee. 

Mr.  Shackelford.  I  would  merely  remark 
that  the  object  of  that  resolution,  is  that  the 
members  may  hand  in  their  statement,  and  by 
doing  so  they  will  greatly  facilitate  the  business 
of  that  Committee,  and  will  doubtless  assist  in 
adjusting  accounts  speedily  after  the  adjourn- 
of  this  Convention. 

Mr.  Siieeley.  I  desire  to  hear  the  resolution 
read. 

The  Secretary  read  the  resolution. 

Mr.  Welch.  Mr.  President,  it  occurs  to  me, 
sir,  that  the  resolution  will  not  do  all  the  mem- 
bers of  this  Convention  justice.  I  sec  the  resolu- 
tion provides  that  the  mileage  of  the  members 
shall  be  determined  by  their  distance  to  and  from 
the  city  of  Jefferson.  The  act  which  calls  the 
Convention  does  not  say,  I  believe,  anything  in 
regard  to  that,  except  that  they  shall  have  the 
same  pay  per  mile  that  the  members  of  the  Legis- 
lature are  entitled  to  under  the  existing  law. 
Now,  sir,  in  the  adoption  of  that  resolution,  my 
friend  from  Howard  will  be  entitled  to  receive  his 
pay  from  Jefferson  City  through  the  city  of  St. 
Louis  up  to  the  North  Missouri  Railroad  home, 
while,  so  far  as  the  gentlemen  are  concerned  who 
live  in  the  Western  portion  of  the  State,  (and  I 
am  one  of  them,)  we  are  to  receive  our  mileage 
from  the  western  part  of  the  State  to  Jefferson 
and  back  again,  and  nothing  is  said  at  all  of  the 
distance  between  the  city  of  Jefferson  and  here. 
We  are  required  to  travel  from  Jefferson  City 
here  and  back  again,  for  nothing,  while  the  gen- 
tleman who  offered  the  resolution  gets  paid  both 


33 


ways,  from  here  to  Jefferson  and  back.  The 
adoption  of  that  resolution,  then,  will  do  injustice 
to  all  of  those  delegates  who  reside  in  the  western 
and  southwestern  portion  of  Missouri.  I  think 
that  that  portion  of  the  resolution  which  confines 
the  mileage  to  the  city  of  Jefferson  and  back, 
should  be  stricken  out,  and  shall  offer  an  amend- 
ment to  that  effect. 

Mr.  Shackelford.  The  gentleman  entirely 
misapprehends  the  object  of  my  resolution.  Its 
object  is  for  the  members  to  present  their  account 
for  mileage  to  the  committee,  in  order  that  the 
committee  may  adjust  it;  and  I  expressed  the 
sentiment  of  the  committee  when  I  said  that  it 
should  be  to  and  from  Jefferson  City,  and 
I  will  state  for  the  information  of  that 
gentleman,  and  of  the  Convention,  if  they 
want  to  know  the  opinion  of  the  Committee  or 
of  a  majority  of  the  Committee  in  reference  to 
that  mileage  system,  that  it  is  this,  that  it  will 
be  calculated  so  far  as  this  Committee  is  con- 
cerned, unless  the  Convention  otherwise  order, 
from  Jefferson  City  to  the  homes  of  the  different 
members,  or,  to  express  myself  more  clearly,  to 
and  from  Jefferson  City  by  the  nearest  practi- 
cable route.  If  the  gentleman  alludes  to  me  in 
that  respect,  it  shall  not  be  by  St.  Louis,  ut  it 
will  be  from  my  home  to  Jefferson  City,  and 
thence  back  by  the  nearest  practicable  route, 
without  any  reference  to  St.  Louis  on  my  pas- 
sage. That  is  the  object  and  that  is  the  sense  of 
the  resolution.  If  the  Convention  otherwise 
order  the  Committee  will  be  governed  by  it,  but 
not  without. 

Mr.  Welch.    Mr.  President— 

The  Chair.  The  gentleman  will  submit  his 
proposition  in  Writing. 

Mr.  Welch.    The  gentleman  who  offered  that 
resolution  seems  to  misapprehend  the  law  of  the 
land  as  it  now  is.    If  he  has  correctly  stated  the 
opinion  which  the  Committee  have  arrived  at  in 
regard  to  the  allowance  of  mileage  of  the  mem- 
bers   of  this   Convention,   by  the   most   direct 
route  from  Jefferson  City  home,  the  committee 
mistake  the  law  of  the  land  as  it  now  is.    For  that 
law  declares  that  they  shall  be  entitled  to  this 
mileage,  not  by  the  most  direct  route,  but  by  the 
most  usually  traveled  route,  and  that,  I  appre-  | 
hend,  from  the  City  of  Jefferson  to  the  county  of  I 
Howard  or  Chariton,  would  be  by  the  way  of  the  ! 
City  of  St.  Louis.  I  hold  that  the  delegation  from 
that  part  of  the  State,  are  legally  entitled  to  claim 
under  the  law  of  the  land,  from  the  City  of  Jef- 
ferson ,  through  this  city,  to  their  respective  places 
of  abode.    The  point  of  injustice,  sir,  was  this: 
We  have  been  compelled,  (those  who  reside  in 
the  western  part    of  the   State,  and    I  among 
them,)  forced,  as  it  were,  to  come  to  this  city  from  I 
Jefferson,  against  our  will.     I  voted  against  that 
proposition,  and  I  hold  it  is  not  riuht  and  just,  j 
after  the  Convention  has  forced  the  delegation 


from  the  Avestern  portion  of  Missouri  here,  that 
they  should  then  be  denied  the  mileage  under  the 
law  of  the  land.  That  law  gives  them  mileage 
from  the  place  of  their  residence  to  the 
place  where  their  business  is  transacted. 
So  far  as  the  Legislature  is  concerned,  the 
law  fixes  their  place  of  business  at  the  capital, 
but  it  is  not  so  with  regard  to  the  Convention.  I 
hold  the  members  of  the  Convention  here  are  en- 
titled to  mileage  from  their  places  of  abode  to  this 
city.  All  the  Delegations  who  reside  upon  the 
northern  side  of  the  river,  and  who  reside  in  the 
southeast  of  Missouri,  and  down  from  the  Iron 
Mountain  Railroad  and  the  Arkansas  line,  under 
this  resolution  are  entitled  to  their  mileage  from 
Jefferson  Ctty,  home,  and  in  coming  to  this  city 
they  are  on  their  way  home — while  we  in  coming 
to  Sr.  Louis  have  gone  further  away  from  home 
and  are  entitled  to  no  mileage  at  all  from  here  to  the 
capital  of  the  State.  I  think  there  is  manifest  in- 
justice in  the  resolution  and,  therefore,  will  write 
out  an  amendment. 

Mr.  Welch  then  offered  his  amendment  which 
was  as  follows : 

Strike  out  the  words  "to  the  city  of  Jefferson." 

The  Chair.  The  question  will  be  on  the  adop- 
tion of  the  amendment. 

The  amendment  was  rejected  by  14  ayes,  noes 
not  counted. 

The  Chair.  The  question  next  is  on  the  adop- 
tion of  the  resolution. 

Mr.  McFerran.  I  am  writing  a  substitute 
which  I  will  present  directly. 

Mr.  Smith.  While  the  gentleman  is  writing 
his  substitute  I  will  read  that  part  of  the  act  of 
the  Legislature  referring  to  the  mileage.  (Pro- 
ceeded to  read  from  the  Legislative  act. ) 

Mr.  McFerran  offered  the  following  substi- 
tute: 

Resolved,  That  the  Committee  on  Accounts  be 
requested  to  procure  a  copy  of  the  act  of  the  Gen- 
eral Assembly,  now  in  session,  fixing  the  mileage 
of  members  of  the  General  Assembly,  and  that 
the  mileage  of  members  of  the  Convention  be 
audited  according  to  the  provisions  of  said   act. 

The  Chair.  I  will  remark  to  the  gentleman 
that  that  is  already  the  law. 

Mr.  McFerran.  Yes,  sir;  but  I  understand 
that  the  General  Assembly,  during  the  present 
session,  has  changed  the  law. 

The  Chair.  The  new  law,  I  understand,  will 
not  go  into  effect  until  the  first  of  May. 

Mr.  McFerran.  Then  I  withdraw  my  sub- 
stitute. 

The  question  recurring  on  the  original  resolu- 
tion, it  -was  adopted. 

Mr.  Wilson,  from  the  Committee  appointed  a 
few  days  ago  to  contract  with  two  competent  per- 
sons to  report  the  proceedings  of  the  Convention, 
made  the  following  report  which  was  adopted : 

3 


34 


Mr.  President:  The  committee  to  which  was 
referred  the  resolution  requiring  said  committee 
to  employ  two  competent  persons  to  report  the 
proceedings  and  debates  of  the  Convention,  re- 
port that  they  have  discharged  that  duty,  and 
have  employed  L.  L.  Walbridge  and  Ernest 
Schrick,  gentlemen  well  qualified  to  discharge  the 
duties  required,  and  have  agreed  to  pay  said  re- 
porters each  six  dollars  per  day  during  the  sitting 
of  the  Convention,  all  of  which  is  respectfully 
submitted.  WILSON,  Chairman. 

By  Mr.  Brown  : 

Resolved,  That  when  this  Convention  shall  have 
finished  the  business  for  which  it  was  convened, 
it  shall  adjourn  to  meet  in  the  Representatives' 
I  [all,  in  the  city  of  Jefferson,  on  Monday,  the  1st 
of  July,  1831. 

Resolved,  That  a  committee  of  seven  be  elected 
by  ballot,  to  be  composed  of  one  from  each  Con- 
gressional District,  whose  duty  it  shall  be  to  con- 
vene the  said  Convention  prior  to  the  day  herein 
designated,  should  any  exigency  require  such 
proceeding;  and  this  shall  be  done  by  giving  fif- 
teen days'  notice  in  one  newspaper  in  each  Con- 
gressional District  of  the  time  and  place  of  hold- 
ing such  Convention. 

Resolved,  That  the  committee,  as  soon  as  prac- 
ticable after  their  election,  meet  together  to 
appoint  a  Chairman,  and  establish  the  rules  by 
which  they  are  to  be  governed  in  convening  said 
Convention  or  deciding  upon  the  practicability  of 
so  doing. 

Mr.  Welch.  I  move  to  lay  the  resolutions  on  ! 
ihe  table  until  to-morrow  and  have  them  printed. 
Mr.  Breckinridge  offered  the  following: 
Resolved  by  the  People  of  Missouri  in  Conven- 
tion assembled,  That  secession  is  a  dangerous 
political  heresy,  finding  no  warrant  in  the  Consti- 
tution or  laws  which  lie  at  the  foundation  of  our 
systems  of  government. 

Resolved,  That  Missouri  will  do  nothing  to 
sanction,  support  or  countenance  the  pretended 
right  of  secession,  since  its  approval  by  the  peo- 
ple involves  the  destruction  of  all  our  institutions, 
whether  State  or  Federal. 

Resolved,  That  the  Government  which  our 
fathers  formed,  and  which  for  nearly  three  quar- 
ters of  a  century  has  failed  in  nothing  to  answer 
the  ends  for  which  it  was  established,  is  suited  to 
the  habits  and  adapted  to  the  wants  of  the  Amer- 
ican people,  and  that  every  dictate  of  wisdom  re- 
quires us  to  direct  our  efforts  rather  to  its  preser- 
vation than  the  formation  of  any  substitute  for  it. 
Resolved,  That  we  deplore  the  action  of  some 
of  our  Southern  brethren  in  adopting  ordinances 
of  secession,  and  assuming  a  hostile  attitude 
toward  the  Federal  authorities.  In  asserting  that 
secession  is  a  remedy  for  the  grievances  of  which 
the  South  complains ;  in  seeking  to  destroy  the 
Federal  Government,  which  is  of  itself  guiltless 
of  wrong;  and  in  forgetting  that  in  and  through 


the  Union  are  better  means  and  ampler  facilities 
for  redressing  all  grievances  than  out,  of  it— they 
have  committed  grave  errors;  and  whilst  Mis- 
souri will  exhaust  all  efforts  in  restoring  har- 
mony and  securing  justice,  she  recognizes  no 
obligation  to  support  them  in  these  proceedings, 
believing  that  thereby  she  would  prejudice  rather 
than  promote  the  best  interest  of  all  concerned. 

Resolved,  That  it  is  essential  to  the  existence 
of  government  that  some  authority  should  be 
charged  with  the  duty  of  executing  the  laws,  and 
that  the  proper  action  of  the  constituted  authori- 
ties should  be  supported  and  obeyed;  and  al- 
though Ave  deprecate  any  collision  between  the 
Federal  Government  and  our  disaffected  South- 
ern brethren,  it  is  the  opinion  of  this  Convention 
that  these  duties  and  obligations,  as  prescribed 
by  and  under  our  Federal  Constitution,  cannot  be 
annulled  or  impaired  consistently  with  the  peace, 
dignity  or  existence  of  the  governments,  State 
or  Federal. 

Resolved,  That  for  the  thorough  and  final 
removal  of  all  cause  of  complaint  against  our 
brethren  of  the  Northern  States,  we  desire  the 
enforcement  of  the  constitutional  guarantee  con- 
cerning the  rendition  of  fugitives  from  service,  a 
renunciation  of  any  purpose  to  interfere  with 
slavery  in  the  States  or  in  the  District  of  Colum- 
bia, or  with  the  inter- State  slave  trade,  and  some 
equitable  and  complete  adjustment  of  the  territo- 
rial question;  based  upon  an  abandoment  by  the 
North  of  any  purpose  to  use  the  power  of  the 
General  Government  to  repress  or  extinguish 
slavery,  and  by  the  South  of  any  purpose  to  use 
the  power  of  the  General  Government  to  perpet- 
uate and  extend  it;  and  that  we  confidently  rely 
upon  the  justice  of  our  Northern  brethren  to  aid 
by  appropriate  legislation,  or  by  adequate  con- 
stitutional amendments,  in  producing  these  re- 
sults, and  in  securing  their  enforcement  and  ob- 
servance by  a  cordial  compliance  with  their  spirit. 

Resolved,  That  we  appeal  to  our  sister  States 
of  Kentucky,  Arkansas,  Tennessee,  North  Caro- 
lina, Virginia,  Maryland  and  Delaware,  whose 
interests  are  so  closely  identified  with  our  own, 
to  stand  firmly  with  us  in  the  position  we  assume, 
asking  of  our  Northern  brethren  the  full  recog- 
nition of  our  just  claims,  and  of  our  Southern 
brethren  a  reconsideration  of  their  hasty  action ; 
that  so  may  be  restored  the  old  relations  of 
peace,  prosperity  and  perfect  Union. 

Mr.  Comingo  offered  the  following: 

Whereas,  under  our  Federal  Government  we 
have  been  one  of  the  greiitest  and  one  of  the 
most  prosperous  nations  of  the  earth;  and, 
whereas,  said  Government,  if  faithfully  adminis- 
tered, will  ultimately  secure  to  its  subjects  a  de- 
gree of  happiness  and  greatness  never  yet  attain- 
ed by  any  other  people ;  and,  whereas,  there  are 
strong  reasons  for  fearing  that  the  conflicting 
views  and  feelings  of  the  people  of  this  confeder- 


35 


cy  may  result  in  the  subversion  of  the  Govern- 
ment under  which  we  have  so  greatly  prospered, 
and  plunge  our  nation  into  the  vortex  of  civil 
war,  and  drench  the  land  with  fraternal  blood; 
Therefore,  we  the  people  of  the  State  of  Missouri, 
in  Convention  assembled,  do  hereby 

Resolve,  That  under  the  Federal  Govern- 
ment the  people  of  the  Uuited  States  of  America 
have  hitherto  been  greatly  prospered  at  home 
and  respected  abroad;  and  that  to  it  they  are 
mainly  indebted  for  the  high  position  they  have 
attained  among  the  nations  of  the  earth. 

2.  That  we  are  warmly  attached  to  the 
Federal  Union,  and  that  we  will  not  cease  our 
efforts  for  its  preservation,  until  hope  that  we 
may  obtain  an  honorable  settlement  of  our  diffi- 
culties, ceases  to  be  rational. 

3.  That  we  believe  all  our  national  difficul- 
ties may  be  settled,  and  that  peace  and 
fraternal  feeling  will  be  again  restored,  if  the  peo- 
ple of  the  North  should  be  allowed  the  time,  and 
can  obtain  the  privilege  of  uttering  their  voice  at 
the  ballot  box. 

4.  That  without  the  further  exercise  of  a 
spirit  of  forbearance,  conciliation  and  com- 
promise, there  can  be  no  hope  of  an  adjust- 
ment of  our  national  difficulties ;  and  that  unless 
they  be  amicably  adjusted,  civil  war  will  inevita- 
bly ensue;  and,  as  a  necessary  consequence,  finan- 
cial and  social  and  moral  ruin  must  follow,  to- 
gether with  scenes  of  carnage  and  violence  with- 
out a  parallel  in  the  history  of  our  race. 

5.  That  in  the  opinion  of  this  Convention 
the  compromise  resolutions  offered  by  Sena- 
tor Crittenden  at  the  late  session  of  Congress, 
present  a  basis  of  adjustment  that  is  at  once  hon- 
orable and  permanent;  that  it  is  not  unreasona- 
ble to  hope  that  the  seceded  States  would  ulti- 
mately return  into  the  Union  on  that  basis  were 
it  adopted ;  and  that  no  propositions,  materially 
differing  from  those  above  indicated,  will  be  so 
well  calculated  to  restore  peace,  and  dispel  the 
darkness  that  overshadows  the  land. 

6.  That  whatever  may  be  our  views  touching 
the  action  of  the  seceded  States ;  however  much 
we  may  regret  their  haste,  and  however  much  we 
may  feel  the  injustice  which  they  have  done  their 
sister  slave  States,  we  believe  any  attempt  on  the 
part  of  the  General  Government  to  coerce  them 
back  would  involve  the  whole  nation  in  civil  war, 
and  would  forever  preclude  the  possibility  of  a 
re-union  of  the  States. 

7.  That  whether  Missouri  shall  continue  to  oc- 
cupy her  present  status,  or  shall  hereafter  be  com- 
pelled to  seek  other  alliances,  she  will  not  submit 
to,  nor  tolerate,  but  will  resist  and  oppose  any  at- 
tempt that  may  point  to  the  coercion  of  the  seced- 
ed States. 

8.  That  in  order  further  to  carry  forward  our 
efforts  to  procure  our  liberties  and  union,  we  re- 
commend a  Convention  of  the  people  of  the  bor- 


der States  for  the  purpose  of  presenting  a  plan  of 
adjustment  to  be  submitted  to  the  people  of  all  the 
States  that  have  not  seceded. 

Mr.  McDowell  offered  the  following: 

Resolved,  That  the  Hon.  John  Reynolds,  late 
Governor  of  Illinois,  be  invited  to  address  this 
Convention  in  this  Hall,  next  Friday  evening. 

Adopted. 

By  Mr.  Moss.  Ordered,  That  the  Inaugural 
Address  of  the  President  of  the  United  States  be 
committed  to  a  committee  of  the  whole  House,  to 
be  denominated  "The  Committee  of  the  Whole 
on  the  State  of  the  Union." 

Mr.  Moss.  I  am  aware  that  a  motion  of 
this  sort  was  made  by  the  gentleman  from 
Clinton  (Mr.  Birch)  yesterday,  and  withdrawn. 
But  I  hope  the  Convention  will  pass  this  resolu- 
tion. I  think,  sir,  that  it  is  a  harmless  subject 
which  the  Convention  can  discuss  during  the 
leisure  hour.  Our  Committees  have  not  made 
any  reports  to  the  Convention  calculated  to  elicit 
any  debate,  and  I  find  a  good  many  of  the  mem- 
bers of  the  Convention  desire  to  discuss  this  mat- 
ter, and  I  hope  the  resolution  will  therefore  be 
adopted.  There  are,  sir,  I  believe,  ninety-nine 
members  of  the  Convention,  when  all  are  present, 
and  so  far  as  I  have  been  able  to  ascertain,  I 
believe  there  are  ninety-nine  different  opinions  as 
to  what  that  message  means.  I  think,  therefore, 
that  no  harm  can  grow  out  of  a  discussion  on 
that  message.  It  is  a  matter  of  some  importance 
that  we  should  know  what  it  does  mean.  The 
country  has  looked  forward  to  it  with  great  inter- 
est. Those  who  have  been  in  favor  of  taking 
Missouri  out  of  the  Union  and  of  breaking  up 
the  Confederacy,  have  declared  that  message 
would  be  in  favor  of  war,  while  others 
who  are  friends  of  the  Union  have  look- 
ed forward  to  it  as  the  harbinger  of 
peace;  and,  sir,  it  is  surprising  to  see  what  dif- 
ferent impressions  are  made  by  that  message, 
not  only  upon  different  members  of  this  Conven- 
tion, but  upon  all  our  fellow-citizens  throughout 
the  country.  The  telegrams,  sir,  that  reached 
this  city  yesterday  announced  that  in  various 
parts  of  this  Union  that  message  was  looked  up- 
on as  the  messenger  of  peace,  while  in  other  por- 
tions it  was  thought  to  have  nothing  upon  its 
face  but  war;  and,  sir,  the  people  of  Missouri  are 
anxious  to  have  it  understood  what  that  message 
does  mean,  for  upon  the  tone  of  that  document 
and  upon  the  policy  recommended  therein,  de- 
pends, in  a  great  measure,  the  action  of  the  peo- 
ple of  Missouri.  And,  sir,  they  will  look  with 
great  anxiety  to  see  what  interpretation  we  put 
upon  it.  Without  further  discussion,  I  hope  the 
Convention  will  pass  the  resolution. 

Mr.  Hatcher.  I  differ  with  the  gentleman  from 
Clay  that,  this  will  be  a  harmless  measure.  From 
his  own  argument  we  learn  that  there  would  be 
ninety-nine  different  opinions  with  regard  to  the 


36 


Inaugural.  I  believe  it  is  necessary  for  the  success 
of  any  measure  in  order  to  secure  its  adoption, 
that  there  should  be  perfect  harmony  in  regard  to 
it.  We  have  referred  all  important  measures  to 
the  Committee  on  Federal  Eolations— everything 
that  touches  our  relations  to  the  Federal  Govern- 
ment. That  Committee  will  in  due  time  make  a 
report,  and  then  every  member  of  the  Convention 
will  have  an  opportunity  of  making  known  his 
sentiments  to  this  Convention  as  to  what  our  re- 
lations are  to  the  General  Government.  I  believe 
the  adoption  of  this  resolution  would  be  an  apple 
of  discord  thrown  into  this  Convention  which 
would  unfit  us  for  calm  consideration  on  the  re- 
port of  the  Committee  on  Federal  Eelations,  and 
therefore  I  hope  this  resolution  will  not  pass. 

Mr.  Irwin.  I  object  to  the  passage  of  this  res- 
olution, and  move  to  lay  it  on  the  table. 

Motion  sustained. 

Mr.  Gantt  offered  the  following  resolution : 

1.  Resolved,  That  the  Government  which  is  the 
birthright  of  the  citizens  of  this  Union,  resulting 
from  the  combined  action  of  the  Federal  Con- 
stitution and  those  of  Federal  States,  is,  beyond 
any  of  which  history  speaks,  calculated  for  the 
promotion  of  the  great  ends  for  which  govern- 
ments were  established  among  mankind. 

2.  That  the  physical  peculiarities  of  our  widely 
extended  country,  and  its  varieties  of  soil  and 
climate,  necessitating  a  diversity  of  pursuits  and 
a  division  of  labor,  and  seconding  most  auspi- 
ciously the  far-reaching  and  long-sighted  wisdom 
and  patriotism  of  those  who  laid  the  foundations 
of  the  American  Union,  have  raised  this  country, 
in  the  short  space  of  three  score  years  and  ten, 
to  the  full  stature  of  a  first-rate  power,  differing 
from  other  nationalities  of  equal  rank  chiefly  in 
this :  That  whereas  centuries  of  struggle,  of  mis- 
fortune, and  painful  vicissitude  have  brought 
them  to  their  present  state,  our  happy  condition 
is  the  achievement  of  hopeful  and  expanding 
youth— a  few  years  of  prosperity  uncheckered 
with  reverse — and  the  blessing  of  Heaven  upon 
the  best  system  of  government  which  the  wisdom 
and  piety  of  mankind  ever  devised  for  the  welfare 
of  the  human  race. 

3.  That  while  nothing  which  is  the  work  of  liv- 
ing man  is  free  from  imperfection,  it  may  be 
said,  without  unbecoming  presumption,  that  the 
successful  solution  by  the  fathers  of  our  nation, 
of  the  great  problem  of  government,  (which 
never  before  was  able  to  hit  and  maintain  the 
golden  mean  between  despotism  and  anarchy,) 
has  not  only  made  the  United  States  the  envy  of 
the  universe,  but  has  been,  and,  despite  the  dan- 
gers that  threaten  us,  still  is,  the  pole  star  and 
the  watch-word  throughout  the  world  of  those 
who  are  struggling  for  liberty. 

4.  That  while  this  is  the  benign  aspect  which 
this  country  wears  towards  oppressed  and  strug- 
gling nationalities,   our  flag,  which  now  waves 


over  every  sea,  carries  to  the  governments  of  the 
remotest  regions  of  the  earth  warning  that 
wherever  the  humblest  American  citizen  is  found, 
the  protection  of  a  mighty,  vigilant  and  proud 
nation  accompanies  and  watches  over  him. 

5.  That  the  enjoyment  of  the  innumerable 
blessings  which  flow  from  our  national  Union  is  a 
boon  for  gaining  which  the  most  spiritless  of 
mankind  would  gladly  barter  their  blood ;  and 
that  the  people  of  the  United  States,  on  pain  of 
being  condemned  as  unworthy  and  degraded 
men,  standing  in  most  hideous  contrast  with  their 
heroic  forefathers,  must  transmit  this  sacred  in- 
heritance unimpaired  to  their  children. 

6.  That  coercion,  in  the  sense  of  civil  war 
waged  by  one  section  of  the  country  upon  the 
other  with  the  design  of  bringing  any  State  or 
States  into  subjection,  and  holding  them  as  con- 
quered provinces,  is  not  only  a  moral,  political 
and  military  impossibility,  but  is  subversive  of 
the  central  idea  on  which  the  Union  of  these 
States  was  formed ;  but  that  the  same  word  in 
the  sense  of  a  faithful  execution  of  the  supreme 
law  of  the  land  (of  which  the  Fugitive  Slave  law 
and  the  law  for  the  suppression  of  the  African 
slave  trade  are  examples)  means  no  more  than 
what  is  inseparably  bound  up  with  the  very  na- 
ture of  government — and  that  government  de- 
prived of  its  healthful  functions  is  the  idlest  of 
all  solemn  mockeries. 

7.  That  the  present  is  a  crisis,  the  importance 
of  which  no  language  can  exaggerate.  That  our 
national  existence,  our  civil  liberties,  the  right  of 
every  peaceful  and  orderly  citizen  to  enjoy  the 
fruits  of  his  toil  and  freedom  from  the  tyranny 
of  tumultuary  violence,  all  depend  upon  what  the 
next  few  months  may  bring  forth.  That  in  the 
conclusions  which  may  then  be  reached  will  be 
found  the  answer  to  the  inquiry,  whether  this 
proud  and  powerful  nation  shall  become  a  hissing 
and  a  reproach,  furnishing  one  more  theme  for 
the  exultation  of  the  friends  of  arbitrary  govern- 
ment, or  shall  vindicate  our  claim  to  be  consid- 
ered as  the  faithful  depositories  of  the  best  hopes 
of  mankind. 

Mr.  Flood  offered  the  following : 

Whereas,  Seven  of  our  sister  States  have  with- 
drawn from  the  General  Government,  and  have 
formed  a  new  confederacy;  therefore, 

Resolved,  That  it  is  the  wish  of  the  people  of 
the  State  of  Missouri  that  the  officers  and  soldiers 
of  the  forts,  and  the  officers  of  the  custom  houses 
belonging  to  the  United  States,  within  the  limits 
of  the  seceding  States,  be  withdrawn. 

Resolved,  That  the  President  of  this  Conven- 
tion make  known  our  wishes  to  the  President  of 
the  United  States. 

The  foregoing  resolutions  were  severally  referred 
to  the  Committee  on  Federal  Relations. 

Mr,  Phillips  offered  the  following : 


37 


Resolved,  That  a  committee  of  two  be  appointed 
by  the  President  to  wait  upon  the  Hon.  John  B. 
Clark,  and  invite  him  to  address  this  Convention. 

Mr.  Broadhead.  The  Convention  has  already 
extended  an  invitation  to  an  Ex-Governor  of  Illi- 
nois. I  voted  against  that  proposition,  and  I 
would  like  to  know  where  this  thing  will  end. 
How  many  distinguished  men  from  different  parts 
of  the  country  are  we  to  listen  to  upon  these  sub- 
jects ?  It  was  altogether  proper  that  we  should 
hear  the  views  of  gentlemen  who  were  Delegates 
to  the  Peace  Conference  at  Washington,  because 
their  action  is  allied  to  the  action  of  this  Conven- 
tion, but  I  do  not  think  it  is  proper  to  go  outside, 
and  solicit  citizens  from  different  parts  of  the 
country  to  address  us. 

Mr.  Bogy.  I  want  to  make  a  motion  to  amend 
the  resolution,  if  in  order,  by  adding  the  name  of 
John  W.  Noell.    Motion  sustained. 

Mr.  Dunn.  I  move  to  add  the  name  of  Hon. 
Mr.  Craig. 

Mr.  Orr.  It  does  seem  to  me  that  if  we  have 
nothing  to  do  but  invite  men  from  various  por- 
tions of  the  State  to  address  us,  we  had  better  ad- 
journ and  go  home.  The  people  of  Missouri  are 
to-day  being  taxed  to  pay  for  deliberative  assem- 
blies and  oificers  of  State  as  much  as  $2,000  per 
day.  I  am  very  fond  of  hearing  men  talk,  but 
I  am  willing  to  hear  them  at  my  own  expense. 
When  I  undertook  this  job,  I  did  not  suppose  that 
the  people  of  the  district  sent  me  here  for  the  pur- 
pose of  inviting  men  from  various  counties  to 
speak.  I  thought  we  were  here  for  the  pur- 
pose of  transacting  business,  if  there  is 
anything  to  do,  but  it  seems  to  me  there  is  noth- 
ing. We  sit  here  two  hours  every  day  and  have 
done  nothing,  when  we  ought  to  have  gone  home 
long  ago,  and  I  think  it  is  due  to  the  people  that 
sweat  and  toil  throughout  Missouri  that  this 
thing  should  be  brought  to  a  close— and  if  we 
have  nothing  to  do  but  to  hear  men  speak,  I 
shall,  before  to-morrow  night,  move  an  adjourn- 
ment. 

Mr.  Sheeley.  I  move  to  amend  the  amend- 
ment, if  in  order,  so  as  to  include  all  the  repre- 
sentatives of  the  present  Congress  that  may  be  in 
the  city.     [Laughter.] 

Mr.  Turner.  If  it  will  be  in  order,  I  suggest 
that  we  insert  the  names  of  the  members  of  the 
Legislature.     [Renewed  laughter.] 

Mr.  Long.  I  move  to  insert  the  name  of  Clai- 
borne F.  Jackson  in  the  amendment. 

Mr.  Phillips.  I  did  not  suppose  that  the  ad- 
dresses of  these  gentlemen  would  infringe  upon 
the  deliberations  of  this  body.  We  have  been 
waiting  for  the  last  two  days  for  the  repoi'ts  from 
the  various  committees,  and  I  merely  offered  this 
resolution  as  a  matter  of  courtesy  to  distinguish- 
ed gentlemen  present,  believing  we  could  not 
better  appropriate  our  leisure  time  than  by 
listening   to   addresses  from  these  gentlemen. — 


The  impressions  of  what  they  have  seen  in 
Washington  would  not  infringe  upon  the  delib- 
erations of  this  body,  and  I  should  not  have  offer- 
ed the  resolution  if  I  had  supposed  that  it  would 
have  interfered  with  the  duties  we  are  called  upon 
to  discharge.  But  inasmuch  as  there  seems  to  be 
objection  to  it,  if  it  be  in  order,  I  ask  leave  to 
withdraw. 

The  Chair.  It  is  not  in  order  without  leave  of 
the  Convention. 

Voices.    Leave! 

The  Chair.    Does  the  gentleman  ask  leave? 

Mr.  Phillips.    I  do. 

The  resolution  was  then  withdrawn. 

By  Mr.  Brown.  Resolved,  That  the  resolution 
requiring  all  resolutions  to  be  referred  to  the  Com- 
mittee on  Federal  Relations  to  be  printed,  be  re- 
scinded. 

Mr.  Welch.  Is  it  in  order  to  rescind  a  rule 
without  one  day's  notice? 

The  Chair.  It  is  a  resolution,  sir,  and  not  a 
rule. 

Mr.  Welch.  I  understand  this  rescinds  a  rule 
of  the  house  already  adopted. 

The  Chair.  My  impression  is,  it  rescinds  a  re- 
solution and  not  a  standing  rule. 

The  resolution  to  rescind  was  adopted— ayes 
39,  noes  27. 

By  Mr.  Mat  son  : 

Resolved,  That  this  Convention  invite  Judge  A. 
H.  Buckner  to  address  us  on  the  subject  of  his 
mission  to  the  Peace  Congress. 

Mr.  Gravelly.  I  desire  to  amend  by  insert- 
ing the  name  of  Waldo  P.  Johnson,  who  was  also 
a  member. 

Mr.  Phillips.  I  move  to  lay  the  resolution  on 
the  table.    Motion  sustained. 

By  Mr.  Irwin  : 

Resolved  by  the  People  of  the  State  of  Missouri 
in  Convention  assembled,  That  the  basis  of  set- 
tlement proposed  in  the  resolutions  of  the  Hon. 
John  J.  Crittenden,  of  Kentucky,  had  the  same 
been  adopted,  would  have  met  with  our  hearty 
approval,  believing  at  the  same  time  that  they 
contained  nothing  to  which  the  South  is  notjnstly 
entitled;  yet  in  view  of  the  dangers  which  sur- 
round us  and  which  threaten  the  disruption  and 
final  overthrow  of  our  glorious  Republic,  involv- 
ing interests  the  value,  yea,  the  preciousness  of 
which  can  never  be  estimated,  we  will  approve 
of  any  other  fair  and  honorable  plan  of  adjust- 
ment that  will  bring  peace  to  our  distracted  coun- 
try, and  furnish  proof  to  the  world  that  as  a 
nation  we  are  one  great  people,  one  in  name,  one 
in  interest,  and  one  in  destiny. 

Mr.  Shackelford,  of  Howard.  Having  voted 
in  the  affirmative  on  the  resolution  inviting  ex- 
Governor  Reynolds  to  address  the  Convention,  I 
move  a  reconsideration  of  the  vote. 

The  vote  was  reconsidered,  and  the  resolution 
then  laid  on  the  table. 


38 


By  Mr.  Wilson.  Resolved,  That  the  people  of 
Missouri  through  their  Representatives  in  this 
Convention  assembled,  do  hereby  tender  to  the 
Hon.  John  J.  Crittenden,  of  Kentucky,  and 
the  Hon.  Stephen  A.  Douglas,  of  Illinois, 
their  thanks  for  their  patriotic,  able  and  untiring 
efforts,  during  the  past  session  of  Congress,  to 
adjust  the  sectional  difficulties  which  now  dis- 
tract the  people  of  this  great  Confederacy,  and, 
although  they  have  been  as  yet  unsuccessful,  yet 
wo  feel  sure  that  the  labors  of  these  noble  patriots 
will  be  gratefully  remembered  by  every  true  friend 
of  liberty  and  Union  in  all  time  to  come. 

Mr.  Birch:  Mr.  President,  as  we  seem  to  have 
nothing  to  do,  and  as  it  occurs  to  me  it  would  be 
advantageous  to  us  to  understand,  as  far  as  prac- 
ticable, the  respective  opinions  of  each  other,  upon 
the  great  questions  that  have  brought  us  together, 
I  yield  to  the  desire  that  has  been  manifested  by 
many  that  I  should  indicate  the  views  I  entertain, 
not  only  in  regard  to  the  resolution  which  has 
been  offered  by  the  gentleman  from  Andrew — 
but,  going  probably  a  step  beyond  it,  to  glance  at 
the  questions  which  will  alone  divide  us  (if  in- 
deed we  shall  be  ultimately  divided)  in  respect 
to  our  action  here.  My  remarks  must,  neverthe- 
less, be  less  connected  than  I  would  desire  them  to 
be — seeing  that  I  speak  thus  from  the  impulse  of 
the  moment,  and  without  cither  notes,  or  books, 
or  preparation  of  any  kind. 

As  to  the  resolution,  it  proposes  simply  to  ten- 
der the  thanks  of  Missouri  to  two  illustrious 
statesmen — one  from  a  slave  and  the  other  from 
a  free  State — for  their  noble  and  patriotic  ex- 
ertions to  perpetuate  the  Union  of  these 
States.  The  resolution  is  not  stronger — nor 
is  it  indeed  as  emphatic  in  their  favor, 
as  history  will  by  and  by  be;  for  while 
others  have  faltered— whilst  men  on  the  right 
and  men  on  the  left,  of  all  sections,  have 
stood  awe-stricken  at  the  portents  of  the  last  few 
weeks  at  Washington— whilst  the  telegrams  of 
the  despondent  and  the  treacherous  were  sent  over 
the  Union  to  the  effect  that  "  all  was  lost,"  the 
telegrams  of  the  next  day,  over  the  signatures  of 
those  brave  and  hopeful  Senators,  would  reassm-e 
the  drooping  heart  of  the  country,  that  it  might 
yet  be  saved;  and  bidding  those  who  loved  it  to 
continue  to  "standfast."  All  honor  to  those  noble 
men!  There  maybe  a  possible  diversity  of  opinion 
in  respect  to  the  plans  they  respectively  matured, 
each  looking  to  the  same  glorious  end,  but  I  will 
not  anticipate  that  the  vote  which  will  be  taken, 
after  the  subject  has  been  discussed,  will  embody 
the  record  of  a  single  dissenting  voice. 

Passing  to  a  very  brief  review  of  some  of  the 
more  general  points  of  controversy  and  of  prejudice 
with  which  our  duties  here  are  complicated,  I  trust 
I  may  be  pardoned  for  premising,  that  when  gentle- 
men permit  themselves  to  speak  of  the  aggressions 
of  our  Northern  brethren  during  the  last  forty 


years,  and  of  the  election  of  Mr.  Lincoln  as  the 
culminating  point  of  those  aggressions,  I  am  con- 
strained to  interpose  at  least  "the  truth  of  his- 
tory" to  mitigate,  if  it  may  not  avert,  so  indis- 
criminate an  inculpation.  I  will  not  say,  there- 
fore, that  the  accusation  is  the  very  reverse  of 
the  truth,  but  this  I  will  say,  and  respectfully 
challenge  thereto  a  respectful  denial :  I  say,  then, 
that  during  this  entire  and  exact  period  of  "forty 
years,"  whilst  we  have  had  much  to  complain  of 
in  the  conduct  of  the  North,  my  recollection  of 
political  history  is  that  the  South  have  never  been 
united  in  a  single  demand  upon  the  justice  and 
fraternity  of  the  North  that  was  not  ultimately 
written  down  in  our  Statute  books  by  the  aid  of 
their  votes  in  Congress. 

To  commence  with  the  question  of  admission 
into  the  Union  of  the  noble  State  we  are  here 
honored  to  represent  in  its  highest  final  preroga- 
tive of  political  sovereignty,  who  does  not  re- 
member that  after  it  had  been  kept  out  of  the 
Union  for  an  entire  session  of  Congress,  in  con- 
sequence of  the  preponderance  of  extreme  opin- 
ions in  opposition  to  the  extension  of  slavery, 
(then  as  now,)  the  question  was  finally  ad- 
justed, at  the  instance  of  the  South,  and 
with  the  concurrence  of  its  leading  states- 
men, by  the  admission  of  Missouri,  and 
the  division  of  all  the  remaining  territory 
by  what  has  been  since  known  as  the  "Missouri 
Line,"  of  thirty-six  degrees  and  thirty  minutes.  I 
am  not  here  to  inquire  to-day  whether  this  Southern 
"compromise"  was  a  judicious  or  an  injudicious 
one,  but  to  adduce  it  as  evidence  of  an  ultimate 
concession  by  the  JYbr;£7i,after  she  had  apparently 
reached  as  determined  an  opposition  to  the  exten- 
sion of  slavery  then  as  she  has  now.  If  it  be  re- 
plied that  she  subsequently  objected  to  the  exten- 
sion of  the  Missouri  line  to  the  Pacific,  so  as  to 
cover  and  include  our  acquisitions  from  Mexico, 
it  is  but  just  to  add  that  she  soon  acquiesced  in  the 
Southern  demand  for  the  repeal  of  the  Missouri 
line,  and  the  restoration  of  the  great  principle  of 
"non-intervention" — and  that  by  the  aid  of  her 
lion-hearted  Democracy  we  carried  the  subsequent 
election  of  Buchanan  against  Fremont,  as  we 
would  have  carried  the  last  one  against  Lincoln 
had  we  but  stood  by  our  platform  and  a  single 
candidate,  instead  of  dividing  amongst  ourselves, 
and  thus  dispiriting  our  allies.  I  am  not  going 
into  that  now,  however,  and  hence  pass  on. 

The  next  instance  in  which  truth  and 
candor  compels  me  to  regard  the  action 
of  the  North  in  a  light  very  different  from 
that  which  has  been  so  undiscriminatingly 
imputed  to  her,  has  reference  to  the  annexation 
of  what  is  called  the  Platte  country.  It  is  a  noble 
region,  Mr.  President,  and  nobly  represented  here 
to-day  by  slaveholders— including  the  new  Con- 
gressman from  Platte— a  circumstance  to  which 
I  advert  for  no  other  purpose  than  to  add,  that 


39 


one  of  the  strongest  anti -slavery  men  in  all  New 
England  wrote  and  brought  in  the  report  from 
the  Committee  on  Indian  Affairs,  in  favor  of  thus 
adding  a  Congressional  district  then  covered  by 
slavery  exclusion  to  the  slaveholding  State  of 
Missouri.  That  man  was  Horace  Everett,  of 
Vermont,  and  he  put  it  in  his  report,  (copying 
from  the  legislative  memorial  of  our  State,)  that 
it  was  expedient  and  necessary  to  do  so,  in  order 
the  better  to  protect  Missouri  from  the  incursions 
of  the  Indians,  who  (by  the  same  report)  were  to 
be  removed  across  the  river,  into  the  then  unor- 
ganized Territory  of  Nebraska.  Speaking  simply 
what  I  know,  Mr.  President,  I  leave  this  act  of 
the  North  to  speak  for  itself  in  refutation  of  the 
wholesale  denunciations  of  the  flippants,  by 
whom  the  more  sober  men  of  the  country  are 
sometimes  maligned  and  misrepresented,,  and  the 
less  informed  correspondingly  misled  or  misdi- 
rected. 

What  next,  Mr.  President,  in  this  unintermitted 
crusade  of  forty  years,  according  to  the  allega- 
tions of  those  who  seek  alone  to  "fire  the  South- 
ern heart,"  and  "precipitate"  its  too  impidsive 
people  into  all  the  horrors  of  "revolution?" 
What  next?  Look  yonder  to  that  cotton  empire 
in  Texas — of  area  sufficient  to  employ  every  slave 
this  day  in  North  America — and  let  the  man  who 
reads  only  the  newspapers  (if  nothing  else)  an- 
swer to  himself  who  it  was  that  gave  the  most 
votes  for  "Polk  and  Dallas,  Oregon  and  Texas" — 
the  men  of  the  North  or  the  men  of  the  South? 

What  next?  Who  was  it  in  1850  that  gave  re- 
pose to  the  country,  after  an  agitation  that  had 
shaken  it  from  its  centre  to  its  circumference  on 
this  same  question  of  slavery  ?  Need  I  point  you, 
gentlemen,  to  the  immortal  committee  of  thirteen, 
with  Henry  Clay  as  its  Chairman,  and  Lewis 
Cass,  a  Northern  Democrat,  on  his  right,  and 
Daniel  Webster,  a  Northern  Whig,  on  his  left, 
and  Douglas  next,  and  so  on,  Whirrs  and  Demo- 
crats—pro-slavery  men  and  anti-slavery  men- 
North  and  South,  and  East  and  West — forgetting 
for  the  time,  as  I  trust  we  have  forgotten  here, 
that  they  were  party  men,  and  intent  alone,  as 
American  Senators,  to  save  the  country  by  doing 
justice  to  all  its  sections  and  to  all  its  interests. 
They  did  save  the  country  by  the  series  of  meas- 
ures they  agreed  upon  in  committee,  and  which 
were  passed  by  Congress  and  accepted  by  the 
people,  amongst  which  was  the  Fugitive  Slave 
Law,  of  which  I  shall  perhaps  speak  more  fully 
in  another  connection. 

Another  accusation  which  is  unjust  to  the 
North  as  a  section,  however  reprehensive  m  too 
many  Northern  localities,  has  relation  to  the  ob- 
structions which  have  been  interposed  to  the  exe- 
cution of  the  fugitive  slave  law.  I  speak  not  of 
the  legislative  enactments  of  many  of  the  North- 
ern States,  being  gratified  to  find  that  they  are  in- 
cluded in  the  accepted  report  of  the  Committee  of 


Thirty-three,  and  that  they  are  otherwise  in  the 
course  of  being  satisfactorily  modified  or  wholly 
repealed.  I  speak  therefore  of  the  abuse  to  which 
the  conduct  of  bad  men  in  Chicago  and  elsewhere 
is  perverted  by  the  partizans  of  secession  in  this 
State,  who  print  or  tell  only  so  much  of  this 
story  of  our  wrongs  as  will  influence  the  less  in- 
formed and  unreflecting  to  the  point  of  believing 
that  a  majority  of  the  citizens  of  the  free  States, 
are  "negro  thieves  at  heart,"  and  that  the  "res- 
cuers" at  Chicago,  Cleveland  and  elsewhere,  are 
but  the  representatives  of  the  general  public  sen- 
timent. Gentlemen,  we  all  know  that  this  is 
disingenuous  and  untrue,  and  we  should  all 
have  moral  courage  and  firmness  to  so  proclaim 
it  to  our  constituents  and  the  country.  If  I  believed 
this,  I  would  treat  the  Government  and  people  of 
Illinois,  and  the  other  free  States,  as  a  hostile  and 
an  alien  people,  at  once  and  forever.  When  I 
have  seen,  however,  that  even  in  the  most  recent 
and  audacious  rescue  case  at  Chicago,  the  ring- 
leaders were  all  speedily  indicted  by  a  Chicago 
grand  j  ury, and,  j  udging  from  all  the  past,that  they 
will  be  visited  with  the  final  penalties  of  the  law 
they  violated,  I  am  no  more  in  favor  of  breaking 
up  the  Government,  and  giving  it  over  to  the 
lawlessness  of  those  bad  men  in  Chicago  and 
elsewhere,  than  I  would  be  in  favor  of  breaking 
up  the  Methodist  Church  South,  of  which  I  am 
an  humble  member,  because  bad  men  are  occa- 
sionally found  even  within  its  hallowed  precincts. 
No :  I  would  use  the  discipline  of  the  Church  to 
deal  with  its  offending  members,  just  as  I  would 
use,  and  as  we  are  now  using,  the  Fugitive  Slave 
Law  to  punish  those  who  violate  it.  My  word 
for  it,  if  we  but  "hold  on,"  the  bad  men  in  both 
cases  will  get  "tired"  first. 

It  is  brought  forward  as  the  crowning  ele- 
ment wherewith  to  dispirit  us,  that  the  North- 
ern people  have  at  last  elected  a  sectional 
candidate  upon  a  sectional  platform,  and  that  we 
have  no  reason  to  hope  that  they  will  change 
their  verdict.  I  scarcely  know  how  to  address 
myself  to  a  proposition  of  that  kind,  and  will 
hence  simply  present  such  countervailing  facts 
as  may  present  themselves  to  my  mind,  and  will 
leave  the  Convention,  wrbcn  they  retire,  to  reflect 
upon  what  I  have  thus  desultorily  thrown  to- 
gether, and  put  the  disjointed  fragments  into  the 
proper  connections  of  a  speech.  My  purpose  will 
be  to  array  the  authority  of  the  men  of  the  North 
against  the  politicians  of  the  North — it  being  the 
people  of  that  section  whom  it  will  be  our  duty  to 
address  in  the  name  and  by  the  authority  of  the 
people  of  our  own  section.  To  the  alleged  decla- 
ration of  Mr.  Sumner,  therefore,  whose  authority 
has  been  invoked  by  the  despondent  and  the 
treacherous  amongst  us,  that  the  Crittenden  prop- 
ositions were  an  insult  to  Massachusetts — to  this 
insolent  and  summary  disposition  of  the  proposi- 
tions of  the  senior  Senator,  whom  it  is  the  inten- 


40 


tion  of  our  resolve  to  honor — it  is  deemed  suffi- 
cient to  reply  that  whilst  the  Senator  from  Bos- 
ton was  thus  speaking  for  the  edification  of  dis- 
nnionists  North  and  South,  the  people  of  Boston — 
14,000  out  of  18,000  or  19,000— were  signing  and 
transmitting  a  memorial  to  Congress,  wrapped  in 
the  American  flag,  praying  the  fraternal  adjust- 
ment of  all  our  complications,  upon  the  basis  of 
the  Crittenden  proposition.  I  speak  in  presence 
of  our  returned  Congressmen,  who  honor  us  with 
their  presence  to-day,  and  they  will  correct  me  if 
I  have  fallen  into  any  error  in  the  statement  I 
have  thus  repeated.  If  it  be  true,  then,  that  even 
in  fanatical  Boston — the  home  of  Sumner — 
three-fourths  of  the  people  are  opposed  to  the  ex- 
treme opinions  and  purposes  of  Sumner,  when 
brought  practically  in  contact  with  the  great  pur- 
pose of  preserving  the  Union  upon  the  basis  sug- 
gested by  the  Senator  from  Kentucky,  how  dare 
we  draw  the  inference  that  the  Northern  people 
are  determined  to  hold  us  to  their  Northern  plat- 
form—Union or  no  Union.  I  therefore  appeal 
from  Sumner  to  Sumner's  constituents;  from  the 
men  who  disgrace  the  Senate  carpet  to  the  men 
who  honor  the  furrow  and  the  workshops;  and 
taking  hope,  accordingly,  I  proclaim  myself  "  a 
Union  man,"  because  I  have  an  abiding  confi- 
dence that  such  adjustments  of  the  past  and  such 
guarantees  for  the  future,  as  will  enable  us  to 
plow  and  to  sleep  as  securely  and  enjoyingly  as 
our  brethren  of  the  North  do,  will  be  accorded  to 
us  under  the  forms  of  the  Constitution  and  the 
sanetion  of  the  laws. 

Having  thus  denoted  that  I  have  yet  faith  in 
the  manly  justice  of  a  majority  of  the  people  of 
the  North,  it  is  but  proper  to  add,  that  so  far  as 
my  counsel  can  avail  in  this  body,  they  shall  be 
appealed  to  as  m-e-n — men  with  like  infirmities 
of  temper  and  of  pride,  but  yet  with  like  percep- 
tions of  justice  and  of  duty  that  we  claim  to 
possess  ourselves.  If  we  but  thus  interrogate 
our  own  natures,  and  ask  of  each  other  the  ques- 
tion as  to  how  we  would  desire  or  expect  to  be 
addressed  ourselves,  we  will  be  at  no  loss  in  so 
shaping  our  expostulations  as  to  obtain  for  them 
n  frank  and  fair  hearing;  and  I  feel  just  as  cer- 
tain that  the  complications  which  now  so  ear- 
nestly summon  us  to  counsel  will  be  properly  ad- 
justed in  the  Union,  as  that  the  people  of  the 
Union  are  capable  of  just  and  rational  self-go- 
vernment. Sir,  that  feeling  has  been  so  inter- 
woven in  the  texture  of  all  my  political  educa- 
tion, that  at  the  age  of  fifty-seven  I  may  safely 
assume  it  is  the  last  reliance  that  will  forsake  me. 
It  is  upon  that  reliance,  I  repeat,  that  I  am  "  a 
Union  man;"  and  that  although  Southern— "to 
the  manor  born,  and  to  the  manor  bred" — a  na- 
tive of  Virginia,  educated  into  manhood  in  Ken- 
tucky, and  having  worn  out  that  manhood  in 
Missouri — neither  my  education  nor  my  observ- 
ation has  been  such  as  to  cause  me  to  abandon 


my  reliance  upon  the  ultimate  justice  of  any  por- 
tion of  my  countrymen,  North  or  South. 

But  I  have  been  inquired  of,  upon  a  point  of 
consistency,  in  this  wise:  "If,  as  you  assume, 
disunion  be  no  remedy  for  any  of  the  wrongs  or 
which  we  complain,  how  does  it  come  to  pass 
that  even  you,  in  a  given  contingency,  will  no 
longer  stand  up  for  the  Union?"  My  answer 
shall  consist  of  an  analogy  which  will  render  it 
at  least  appreciable  by  those  who  have  neighbors 
in  the  country,  upon  adjoining  estates,  as  I  have. 
With  such  it  is  not  only  convenient  but  profita- 
ble to  live  upon  terms  of  reciprocal  respect  and  mu- 
tual good  will,  and  so  I  shall  ever  expect  and  strive 
to  live.  But  if  instead  of  reciprocating  (as  I 
know  he  does)  the  kindly  offices  of  good  citizen- 
ship and  good  neighborhood,  even  the  estimable 
and  distinguished  colleague  who  is  so  honoring 
me  with  his  attention  in  the  course  of  these 
wholly  unpremeditated  remarks,  were  to  so  tar 
forget  his  own  just  and  fraternal  nature  as  to 
poison  my  springs,  or  fire  my  barns,  cast  dovm 
my  fences,  and  destroy  my  stock,  I  might  suffici- 
ently subdue  myself  to  expostulate  with  him,  as 
I  propose  that  this  Convention  shall  do  with 
even  the  worst  men  of  the  North.  If  my  neigh- 
bor were  to  relent,  it  wovdd  be  my  duty  to  for- 
give him,  and  we  would  continue  to  be  neigh- 
bors, with  no  other  remembrance  of  the  past 
than  the  infirmities  of  the  past.  If,  instead 
of  relenting,  however,  of  past  injustice, 
the  man  who  calls  himself  my  neighbor 
shall  turn  upon  me  the  glance  of  defiance  or  the 
leer  of  disdain,  and  it  shall  thus  or  otherwise  be- 
come apparent  that  the  evil  and  unncighborly 
practices,  of  which  I  had  the  right  to  complain, 
are  to  be  kept  up,  then  I  will  have  no  more  to  do 
with  that  man — come  what  may  !  So  of  the 
association  of  these  States,  Mr.  President,  if  a 
majority  of  the  people  of  the  now  dominant  sec- 
tion shall  become  deliberately  unjust, persistently 
annoying  and  hopclesdy  unfraternal. 

Having  thus,  perhaps,  sufficiently  indicated  my 
judgment  (or  more  properly  my  feelings)  that 
such  a  point  may  be  reached  between  neighbor- 
ing States,  a1-  well  as  neighboring  citizens,  that 
the  long- wronged  party  will  no  longer  consult  the 
mere  question  of  interest  in  determining  his  fu- 
ture association  or  dissociation,  I  dismiss  the 
proposition  by  reiterating  the  opinion  and  the 
hope  that  we  shall  never  be  ealled  to  dep'ore  so 
unhappy  a  period  in  our  history  as  a  nation. 
Wrongs  there  will  occasionally  be,  for  (as  re- 
marked upon  another  occasion  last  summer)  these 
are  incident  to  all  things  human.  They  may, 
however,  be  redressed  in  the  future,  as  in  the 
past,  and  all  move  on  again  together  under  the 
Government  of  our  fathers,  as  well  as  under  any 
other  government — for  let  it  never  be  forgotten, 
on  the  contrary,  let  the  axiom  be  ever  present, 
that  as  no  government  can  be  better  than  the 


41 


people  who  institute  it  and  the  people  who  carry 
it  on,  the  conflicting  opinions  and  interests  which 
sway  mankind  must  he  composed  and  "  compro- 
mised" in  any  and  every  Government  where  men 
are  recognized  as  equals. 

Mr.  President,  weary  and  unfit  as  I  find  myself 
to  be  to  continue  these  remarks— disobeying,  as 
I  have  done,  the  injunctions  of  my  physician  in 
having  spoken  too  long  already — I  feel,  neverthe- 
less, strengthened  to  continue  them  yet  a  little 
longer,  in  order  to  denote  the  estimate  which  is 
formed  of  those  who  stand  by  the  flag  and  the 
laws  of  their  country,  by  those  who  have  no 
other  merit  than  the  earnest  facility  with  which 
they  counsel  resistance  to  both.  For  this  pur- 
pose I  will  read  a  paragraph  from  the  organ  of 
the  Secessionists  in  my  county  town — and  I  do 
this  Avith  the  less  reluctance,  as  for  once  the  edit- 
or writes  and  prints  the  truth !  In  a  copy  of  the 
paper  which  some  friend  has  forwarded  me 
through  the  post  office,  and  which  has  been 
handed  to  me  since  I  came  in  this  morning,  there 
occurs  this  paragraph : 

"Judge  Birch  started  out  in  the  canvass,  in- 
dorsing the  doctrine  of  coercion,  that  is,  he  said 
that  the  United  States  Government  had  the  right 
to  place  ship's  outside  the  different  Southern 
ports,  and  there  collect  all  revenues  ;  and  if  that 
is  not  coercing,  we  would  like  to  know  what  is. 
Judge  Birch  asserted  this  doctrine  as  being  right 
and  just." 

Well,  Mr.  President,  I  did  say  that  the  Gov- 
ernment of  the  United  States  had  the  right  to 
collect  its  revenues  in  that  manner,  and  I  then 
said,  and  I  yet  say,  that  in  my  judgment  it  would 
be  the  mildest  and  least  offensive  manner  in 
which  the  Government  could  assert  an  authority 
which  she  has  never  abnegated,  and  which 
(looking  to  equal  justice  in  the  enforcement  of 
all  other  laws — the  Fugitive  Slave  law  included,) 
T  trust  she  will  7iot  abnegate.  Unless  Congress 
grant  the  power  to  the  President  so  to  collect  the 
revenue  m  the  disturbed  districts,  he  will  of 
course  be  thrown  upon  other  expedients ;  and  al- 
though I  may  come  presently  to  speak  of  his  in- 
augural message  more  fully  than  is  necessary  at 
this  point,  I  congratulate  the  Convention  and  the 
country  that  he  stands  pledged  "in  every  case 
and  exigency"  to  use  his  "best  discretion,"  "ac- 
cording to  circumstances  actually  existing,  with 
a  view  and  a  hope  of  the  peaceful  solution  of 
the  national  troubles."  To  those  who  so  flip- 
pantly deride  the  proposition  to  so  far  respect 
the  feelings  of  our  misguided  brethren  in 
Charleston  as  to  collect  the  national  revenues  on 
shipboard,  beyond  the  reach  of  their  guns,  I 
but  common  ■!  the  special  message  of  Andrew 
Jackson,  eight  and  twenty  years  ago,  in  reference 
to  the  same  snbjcpt,  and  which  I  had  the  honor 
to  read  from  \Vv  proper  public  volume  before 
the  two  Houses  o£  rhe  General   Assembly  on  the 


evening  of  the  7th  of  January  last.  It  was  unan- 
swered then,  and  I  think  it  unanswerable  now, 
except  by  including  the  soldier-statesman  of  the 
Hermitage  and  a  majority  of  both  Houses  of 
Congress  of  that  day,  in  the  same  category  of 
disrespectful  denunciation  which  we  now  hear  in 
respect  to  every  proposition  which  looks  even  to 
the  theoretical  assertion  of  the  authority  of  the 
Government. 

Sir,  I  am  of  those  who  do  not  regard  South 
Carolina,  or  the  other  States  which,  think  they 
have  absolved  themselves  from  allegiance  to  the 
Government  in  which  they  have  so  long  shone  as 
cherished  and  resplendent  members,  as  being 
either  out  of  the  pale  of  the  Government  author- 
ity or  the  Government  protection.  And  whilst  I 
would  forbear,  as  already  indicated,  any  undue  or 
injudicious  exercise  of  the  authority  alluded  to,  I 
would  resent  with  even  a  keener  sensibility,  and 
redress  with  even  a  less  relenting  hand,  any  in- 
dignity or  any  wrong  which  may  come  upon  her 
from  those  who  may  imagine  she  is  alien  from 
the  sympathy  of  her  sisters.  I  cannot  better  de- 
note my  feelings  in  this  respect,  Mr.  President, 
than  by  reference  to  a  case  in  the  domestic  family, 
and  which  I  am  thereby  the  more  able  to  bring 
home  to  myself,  as  doubtless  it  will  go  home  to 
the  heart  of  every  father  and  every  mother  in  this 
crowded  hall.  Away  off  in  the  old  historic 
city  of  Alexandria,  on  the  eastern  edge  of  the 
"  Old  Dominion,"  I  have  a  son  at  school,  prepara- 
tory to  entering  him  at  the  University,  where 
some  friends  premonish  me  he  will  be  taught 
"secession,"  but  where  I  simply  expect  him  to 
graduate  in  the  Madisonian  school  of  "  State 
Rights."  Semi-annually  I  send  that  son  the 
means  of  defraying  his  expenses — the  troublous 
times  upon  which  we  have  fallen  having  reduced 
me  to  the  necessity  of  making  his  last  remittance, 
last  week,  through  one  of  the  financial  institu- 
tions of  this  city,  the  President  of  whom  is  a 
member  of  this  Convention,  and  is  now  honoring 
me  wdth  his  ear.  Well,  sir,  suppose  that  son, 
when  receiving  his  father's  draft,  shall  yield  either 
to  bad  counsels  or  to  the  impulse  of  young  and 
wild  adventure,  and  instead  of  handing  the  pro- 
ceeds to  the  good  old  President,  (of  whose  family 
I  have  also  made  him  a  member,)  shall  determine 
to  use  it  in  transporting  himself  beyond  the  reach 
or  the  influence  of  parental  authority — to  Mexico 
or  some  of  the  islands  of  the  seas,  there  to  set  up 
for  himself.  I  need  not  say  that  I  would  be 
deeply  grieved,  Mr.  President — for  that  would  be 
an  expression  too  tame  for  either  your  feelings  or 
mine — but  this  I  say,  and  claim  for  it  a 
response  in  every  father's  breast,  that 
more  than  ever  before  I  would  continue 
to  remember  that  with  all  his  waywardness  he 
was  still  my  child ;  and  if  wTetch  so  craven,  or 
coward  so  presuming,  should  dare  to  strike  or 
wrrong  that  wandering,  unprotected  boy,  I  would 


42 


hunt  him  to  the  ends  of  the  earth  that  he  should 
feel  the  last  might  of  the  old  and  withering  arm 
of  his  outraged  father.  And  so  of  the  wronged 
yet  precipitate  sisterhood  of  States,  from  whom 
we  have  heard  through  the  public  prints,  and  more 
recently  face  to  face,  in  this  hall,  through  the  ac- 
credited representative  of  one  of  them.  Be  their 
ultimate  destiny  what  it  may,  we  can  never  for- 
get that  with  us  they  have  given  a  historic  and 
glorious  renown  to  the  flag  of  a  common  coun- 
try— and  as  allusion  is  sometimes  made  to  the  in- 
tervention of  France  and  England,  on  the  one 
side  or  the  other,  in  respect  to  the  unhappy  com- 
plications by  which  we  are  environed  and  im- 
perilled, I  hut  speak  the  sentiments  of  the  brave 
and  loyal  men  who  sent  me  here — as  I  believe  I 
speak  the  sentiments  of  every  man  (who  is  a 
man)  in  this  great  broad  State— that  any  foreign 
government  which  shall  intervene  to  wrong  the 
weakest  or  the  most  erring  of  the  American  sis- 
terhood shall  feel  the  outraged  arm  of  every 
American  citizen. 

And  now,  Mr.  President,  with  such  an  allusion 
to  the  Inaugural  Address  of  the  new  President  as 
may  become  a  citizen  who  perhaps  expended  at 
least  as  much  time  and  strength  in  an  earnest  and 
an  ardent  effort  to  defeat  him  as  any  other  in  the 
State — with  such  an  allusion  to  that  message  as 
may  become  the  high  place  from  which  I  am 
thus  honored  to  speak,  I  will  trespass  upon  the 
sustaining  courtesy  of  this  intelligent  and  bril- 
liant assembly  no  longer.  I  trust  I  may  be  able 
to  speak  of  that  paper  with  becoming  consider- 
ation and  candour— remembering  only  that  I  am 
henceforward  a  tribune  of  the  people,  and  no 
longer  a  political  partizan.  If  so,  Mr.  President, 
I  will  have  accomplished  that  most  difficult  of  all 
political  achievements,  namely,  the  high  and 
holy  duty,  in  times  like  these,  of  rendering  jus- 
tice—simple  justice — to  a  political  adversary.  I 
know  that  it  requires  not  only  a  high,  but  an 
elevated  and  a  self-abnegating  courage  to  do  this, 
and  I  pray  for  strength  accordingly. 

What,  then,  is  the  sum  of  the  message  which 
the  country  has  received  from  the  new  President 
since  our  assemblage  in  this  Hall  ?  I  have  not 
only  read  it  carefully  and  criticisingly,  but  so 
often  as  to  have  almost  committed  it  to  memory; 
and  the  men  of  the  furrow  and  the  workshop, 
who  sent  me  here,  will  at  least  bear  me  record, 
that  it  is  substantially  such  a  message  as  I  pre- 
dicted, against  all  clamor  to  the  contrary,  it 
had  to  be.  In  respect  to  the  execution  of 
the  constitutional  provision  for  the  rendi- 
tion of  fugitive  slaves,  and  in  the  total  ab- 
negation of  either  official  authority,  or  of 
personal  inclination,  to  interfere  with  the  existing 
institutions  of  the  South,  would  it  not  be  both 
disingenuous  and  ungenerous  to  meet  the  appa- 
rently total  unreserve  of  the  Executive  with 
even  an  affectation  of  distrust  in  regard  to  his  sin- 


cerity? I  not  only  think  so,  Mr.  President,  but, 
for  one,  I  should  feel  that  I  was  compromising 
my  own  character  for  sincerity,  were  I  thus  cause- 
lessly to  atiempt  to  impugn  the  sincerity  of  the 
highest  functionary  of  my  government — albeit 
my  last  choice,  even  for  the  nomination  which 
resulted  in  his  election.  Such  a  line  of  opposi- 
tion might  possibby  be  pardonable  under  the  law 
of  the  hustings,  but  we  occupy  here  a  different  fo- 
rum, and  I  shall  attempt  to  address  myself  ac- 
cordingly. \ 

Having  next  demonstrated  that  the  Union  is 
not  dissolved,  the  message  but  naturally  ap- 
proaches the  great  question  of  executive  duty  in 
respect  to  the  execution  of  the  Government  laws, 
which  directs  the  collection  of  the  Government 
revenues.  Concurring  with  the  judgment  of  those 
who  reduce  all  that  is  said  upon  that  subject  to 
the  theoretic  assertion  of  the  right  to  collect  the 
Federal  revenue,  and  the  duty  to  do  so,  or  to  for- 
bear to  do  so,  for  the  time  being,  as  the  one 
course  or  the  other  may  best  promote  "the  peace- 
ful solution  of  the  national  troubles,"  may  it  not 
be  inquired  whether  a  more  considerate  and  del- 
icate forbearance  of  a  mere  "legal  right" 
could  be  indicated  by  an  executive  officer,  with- 
out formally  surrendering  the  right  itself?  We 
have  but  to  read  upon  this  point  the 
words  of  the  message  itself,  for,  un- 
less they  be  intended  to  deceive,  they  must  bo 
regarded  as  conclusive  of  the  purpose  to  employ 
the  executive  discretion  "in  every  exigency,  ac- 
cording to  the  circumstances  actually  existing, 
with  a  view  to  the  peaceful  solution  of  our  na- 
tional troubles,  and  the  restoration  of  fraternal 
sympathies  and  affections." 

If,  Mr.  President,  under  words  like  these  any 
President  of  the  United  States  could  be  supposed 
cowardly  and  base  enough  to  cloak  the  purpose 
of  unnecessary  or  unfraternal  civil  war,  there 
might  even  yet  be  doubt  of  the  policy  of  Mr. 
Lincoln.  As,  however,  the  double  depravity 
implied  in  such  a  purpose  is  too  monstrous  for 
human  credulity,  I  dismiss  the  thought — hold 
the  new  Administration  to  their  bond — 
and  as  between  the  theory  of  fraternal  and  legal 
"Union,"  upon  which  they  place  themselves,  and 
the  opposite  theory  of  secession  and  aggressive 
war,  upon  which  (if  it  be  so)  the  new  govern- 
ment reposes,  I  scruple  not  to  avow,  here  in  my 
place,  that  the  sympathies  and  judgment  of  my 
people  are  with  my  own — on  the  side  of  the  govern- 
ment of  the  "United  States"  and  in  opposition  to 
the  Government  of  the  "Confederate  States." 

It  will  of  course  be  with  the  latter  government 
to  determine  whether  it  will  listen  to  the  counsels 
of  those  of  its  own  section,  and  elsewhere,  who 
are  looking  to  such  adjustments  of  the  past,  and 
such  guarantees  for  the  future,  as  shall  render  the 
benefits  and  burdens  of  the  Union  reciprocal, 
and  its  continuance  correspondingly  fraternal  and 


43 


enduring— for,  if  Mr.  Lincoln  shall  keep  his 
word,  in  the  sense  in  which  he  intended  it  should 
be  understood  by  all  his  countrymen,  it  will  be 
neither  from  the  fault  or  the  folly  of  his  Admin- 
istration if  the  menaced  disintegration  which  as 
yet  has  been  without  result  in  blood,  shall  wear 
on  to  that  decisive  and  final  extremity.  God  of 
our  Fathers !  may  the  orisons  of  a  whole  people 
ascend  to  Thee  as  grateful  incense;  and  wilt 
Thou  mercif ully  avert  from  them  the  horrors  of  a 
brothers'  war! 

But  I  may  be  asked,  as  I  have  been,  what  I 
would  have  the  new  Government  to  do  in  respect 
to  the  redelivery  of  the  public  forts,  and  the  col- 
lection of  the  public  revenue.  As  I  may  answer 
the  latter  branch  of  that  question  here,  without 
the  presumption  of  supposing  that  it  will  be  lis- 
tened to  elsewhere,  unless  embodied  in  the  ad- 
dress which  I  think  should  be  issued  by  this  Con- 
vention, I  will  remark,  with  the  greatest  defer- 
ence to  the  judgment  of  others,  that  in  my  opin- 
ion it  would  well  become  the  approved  soldier  and 
statesman  who  is  at  the  head  of  the  Provisional 
Government  at  Montgomery,  were  he  so  to  exert 
the  influence  to  which  he  is  but  justly  entitled,  as 
to  avoid  any  conflict  of  jurisdiction  with  the  Gov- 
ernment out  of  which  he  claims  to  have  sprung, 
during  the  period  whilst  millions  of  men,  as  brave 
as  he  is,  are  exhausting  themselves  to  avert  it.  If, 
after  such  an  appeal  as  will  be  made  by  this  Con- 
vention, in  conjunction  with  others,  it  shall  be 
found  that  a  majority  of  the  people  of  the  North 
are  as  unreflecting  or  as  obstinate  as  many  of 
those  whom  they  have  heretofore  chosen  to  repre- 
sent them — if,  contrary  to  all  my  expectations 
and  belief,  and  the  expectations  of  the  "  Union 
men"  who  sent  me  here,  there  is  reserved  for  us 
the  humiliation  of  finding  ourselves  deceived  in 
respect  to  such  guarantees  for  the  future  as  will 
enable  us  to  toil  with  the  same  hope,  and  to  sleep 
with  the  same  security  as  our  brethren  of  the 
North  do— then,  Mr.  President,  but  not  till  then,  let 
the  conflict  come  which  is  to  decide  the  contro- 
versy of  rival  Governments,  and  a  thenceforth 
rival  and  embittered  peoples.  Until  then,  let  the 
new  Government  at  least  go  no  further  than  to  so 
far  maintain  its  organization — not  in  unnecessary 
menace  or  annoyance,  which  I  am  sure  would  not 
comport  either  with  the  taste  or  the  inclination  of 
its  Executive— but  holding  itself  ready  to  resolve 
itself  again  into  the  Federal  Union,  if  the  causes 
for  which  it  went  out  are  properly  adjusted,  or  to 
assert  its  full  and  final  independence  if  they  are  not. 
In  the  event  last  supposed  (but  which  I  will  not 
suppose)  the  new  government  would  not  only  be 
strengthened  to  at  least  double  the  number  of  its 
present  array  of  States,  but  it  would  enter  upon 
its  career  of  absolute  and  unconditional  independ- 
ence with  the  sympathy  and  the  prayers  of  good 
men,  the  world  over.  0 !  who  can  overestimate 
the  worth  of  that. 


Of  such  a  government  and  people  as  that,  Mr. 
President,  I  should  have  no  fears.  It  would  have 
been  inaugurated  in  patient  patriotism,  for  the 
redress  of  the  wrongs  of  outraged  humanity,  and 
the  God  of  justice  and  the  God  of  battles  would 
be  with  them  as  he  was  in  the  wilderness  with  our 
fathers.  Timid  as  I  always  have  been,  and  growing 
still  more  timid  as  I  grow  old  and  grey,  even  / 
would  not  be  afraid  to  fight  in  such  a  cause  as 
that — for  it  would  be  the  last  resort  of  the  dis- 
equalized  and  the  oppressed  against  what  would 
then  have  been  written  down  as  deliberate,  per- 
sistent injustice  !  But,  gentlemen  of  the  Con- 
vention,! dare  neither  fi  ght  myself,  nor  invoke  oth- 
ers to  a  field  of  fraternal  strife,  upon  such  an  is- 
sue as  has  been  thus  far  presented  to  the  coun- 
try, or  as  I  believe  will  be  presented.  I  dare  not, 
whilst  relying  that  a  majority  of  the  people  of 
the  North  will  as  readily  redress  all  our  substan- 
tial grievances  as  the  forms  of  the  Constitution 
and  of  legislation  will  permit  them  to  do— I  dare 
not  fight  them,  nor  encourage  others  to  do  so. 

"I  dare  do  all  that  may  become  a  man— 

Who  dares  do  more  is  none." 

The  Chair.  The  question  is  on  the  adoption  of 
the  resolution. 

Mr.  Ritchey  called  the  ayes  and  noes. 

Mr.  Orr.  I  desire  the  resolution  read  again. 

The  Secretary  read  the  resolution. 

The  yeas  and  nays  were  then  called,  and  the 
resolution  adopted  unanimously. 

Mr.  Linton  offered  the  following  resolution : 

Resolved,  That  the  thanks  of  this  Convention 
are  due  to  Judge  Birch  for  his  patriotic  and  im- 
mortal speech. 

Mr.  Birch.  I  hope,  Mr.  President,  the  gentle- 
man will  withdraw  the  resolution.  It  is  not  usu- 
al to  offer  such  a  resolution  as  that,  and  I  fear  it 
may  constitute  a  precedent  which  will  embarrass 
gentlemen  in  the  future. 

The  Chair.  I  will  decide  that  it  is  unusual  to 
introduce  such  a  resolution,  and  I  will  not  enter- 
tain it  without  the  consent  of  the  house. 

Mr.  Sheeley  moved  that  the  Convention  now 
adjourn. 

Mr.  Orr  desired  the  gentleman  to  withdraw 
his  motion  for  a  moment,  so  as  to  enable  him  to 
offer  a  resolution. 

Motion  to  adjourn  withdrawn. 

Mr.  Orr  offered  the  following,  which  was 
adopted : 

Resolved,  That  it  is  the  wish  of  this  Conven- 
tion, that  the  resolution  rescinding  the  resolution 
to  print,  shall  not  affect  the  resolutions  offered 
previous  to  its  passage, 

Mr.  Sheeley  renewed  his  motion  to  adjourn. 
Motion  sustained,  and  Convention  adjourned  un- 
til to-morrow  morning. 


44 


SEVENTH    DAY. 

St.  Louis,  March  8th,  1851. 

The  Convention  met  at  10  o'clock. 

President  Price  in  the  Chair. 

Prayer  was  offered  by  the  Chaplain. 

Assistant-Secretary  Campbell  read  the  jour- 
nal, which  was  approyed. 

Mr.  Calhoun  offered  the  following  resolu- 
tions : 

Resolved,  That  the  differences  existing  be- 
tween the  Northern  and  Southern  States  can  be 
better  adjusted  in  the  Union  than  out  of  it;  and 
that  it  is  only  to  be  done  by  a  spirit  of  mutual 
forbearance  and  concession. 

Resolved,  That  whenever  we  exhaust  all  ef- 
forts to  compromise  the  existing  differences,  and 
have  given  the  people  in  Southern  and  Northern 
States  time  to  reflect  and  act,  and  we  see  that  on 
the  part  of  the  Free  States  and  the  extreme 
Southern  States,  that  they  do  not  love  the  Union 
sufficiently  to  make  concessions  to  preserve  it, 
then  it  will  behoove  us,  with  the  Border  States — 
that  is,  those  States  bordering  on  the  Ohio  and 
Mississippi  rivers,  with  North  Carolina — to  meet 
in  convention  and  determine  what  will  be  best  for 
them  to  do  in  the  premises. 

Referred  to  the  Committee  on  Federal  Rela- 
tions. 

By  Mr.  Harbin.  Resolved,  That  this  Conven- 
tion earnestly  desire  an  early  settlement  of  the 
questions  which  have  unhappily  estranged  the 
people  of  the  different  sections  of  the  United 
States  from  each  other,  and  we  earnestly  hope 
that  measures  may  soon  be  inaugurated  to  allay 
the  present  excitement,  and  restore  peace  and 
harmony  among  the  several  States,  and  that,  in 
the  opinion  of  this  Convention,  any  attempt  on 
the  part  of  the  Executive  of  the  United  States  to 
coerce  by  force  of  arms  the  seceding  States  again 
into  the  Union,  will  be  both  unwise  and  impolitic, 
tending  to  force  the  Border  States  to  seces- 
sion and  all  the  States  into  civil  war. 

Mr.  Harbin.  "Would  it  be  in  order  for  the  Con- 
vention to  take  action  on  that  resolution  ? 

The  Chair.  I  think  not  under  the  resolution 
that  was  adopted. 

Mr.  Harbin.  Is  the  resolution  debatable? 
The  Chair.  Well,  sir,  the  resolution  adopted 
some  days  ago  does  not  say  that  resolutions 
should  be  referred  without  debate.  If  gentlemen 
desire  to  debate,  I  will  not  undertake  to  cut  it  off. 
Mr.  Harbin.  I  desire  to  say  that  that  resolu- 
tion is  the  sentiment  of  the  people  whom  I  have 
the  honor  to  represent  upon  this  floor.  It  con- 
tains my  sentiments,  sir,  and  one  great  object  I 
have  in  offering  it  is  to  get  the  sense  of  the  Con- 
vention upon  those  sentiments.    I,  sir,  desire  to 


represent  my  constituents  upon  this  floor  accord- 
ing to  their  will.  I  believe  their  sentiments  upon 
these  subjects  are  engrafted  in  that  resolution, 
and  the  reason  why  I  desire  that  this  Convention 
should  take  action  upon  it,  if  it  is  in  order,  is  that 
I  believe  that  there  is  so  much  business  now  be- 
fore the  Committee  on  Federal  Relations  that  pro- 
bably the  Committee  will  not  be  able  to  report  in 
several  days. 

The  Chair.    The  gentleman  will  effect  his  ob- 
ject by  making  a  motion  to  dispense  with  the 
rules. 
Mr.  Harbin.    I  make  that  motion. 
Mr.  Hatcher.    I  ask  that  the  resolution  be 
read. 
The  Secretary  read  it. 

The  Chair,  to  Mr.  Harbin.    Do  you  desire  to 
debate  further  before  the  question  is  taken. 
Mr.  Harbin.    I  desire  to  suspend  the  rules. 
The  question  on  suspending  the  rules  was  then 
put,  and  answered  in  the  negative. 

Resolution  referred  to  the  Committee  on  Federal 
Relations. 
By  Mr.  Turner: 

Resolved,  That  we,  the  people  of  Missouri,  are 
immovably  attached  to  the  Constitution  of  the 
United  States,  and  that  while  we  have  a  venera- 
tion for  the  patriotic  names  of  Washington,  Jef- 
ferson and  Madison,  we  will  ever  uphold  and  de- 
fend that  sacred  instrument  from  the  violence, 
treason  and  fanaticism  of  either  Northern  or 
Southern  traitors. 

Resolved,  2d.  That  we  deny  the  existence  of  the 
right  of  secession  in  governmental  affairs,  believ- 
ing that  the  existence  of  such  a  right  would  be 
destructive  to  the  permanency  of  our  national 
government,  which  we  understand  to  have  been 
intended  to  be  perpetual  by  the  framers  of  the 
Constitution. 

Resolved,  3d.  That  while  we  deny  the  right  of 
secession,  we  hold  to  the  inalienable  right  of  rev- 
olution whenever  the  government  under  which 
we  live  becomes  so  oppressive  or  tyrannical  that 
the  evils  of  revolution  can  better  be  borne  and 
endured  than  the  oppression  complained  of. 

Resolved,  4.  That  in  the  opinion  of  this  Con- 
vention, the  General  Government  is  the  palla- 
dium of  the  liberties  of  the  people  of  the  United 
States,  and  as  long  as  it  continues  to  protect  and 
defend  the  liberties  and  rights  of  the  citizens  of 
Missouri,  so  long  will  Missouri  stand  true  and 
loyal  to  the  Constitution  and  the  Union,  regard- 
less of  what  other  States  may  see  proper  to  do  in 
the  premises. 

Referred  to  the  Committee  on  Federal  Rela- 
tions. 

By  Mr.  Catce.  Resolved,  That  the  Committee 
on  Publication  be  requested  to  have  three  hun- 
dred copies  of  the  roll  struck  with  the  postoffice 
address  of  each  member  for  the  use  of  the  mem- 
bers of  the  Convention. 


45 


Mr.  Orr  suggested  that  the  resolution  include 
counties. 

The  Chair.  Does  the  gentleman  make  the 
motion  to  so  amend  ? 

Mr.  Orr.  I  simply  make  the  suggestion  to 
the  gentleman. 

Mr.  Dunn.  I  move  that  the  number  of  five 
hundred  be  substituted  for  three  hundred.  Mo- 
tion sustained. 

Mr.  Sheeley.  I  will  suggest,  if  such  a  thing 
is  to  be  done,  that  I  would  add  an  amendment  to 
insert  the  profession  or  calling  of  each  member 
in  the  Convention. 

Mr.  McDowell.  I  will  ask  the  gentleman 
whether  it  would  not  be  better  to  insert  the  State 
of  their  nativity,  also,  so  as  to  show  how  many 
Black  Republicans  are  here?     [Laughter.] 

Mr.  Sheelet.  I  shall  improve  your  suggestion, 
sir— I  am  writing  out  my  amendment. 

Mr.  Sheeley  thereupon  offered  his  amend- 
ment, including  the  age,  place  of  nativity,  post- 
office  address  and  profession  of  each  member, 
and  requesting  the  members  to  furnish  the  Secre- 
tory with  the  necessary  information. 

Mr.  Crawford.  I  would  move  to  amend  the 
amendment  by  adding  the  political  antecedents 
of  each  member.     [Laughter.] 

The  Chair.  The  gentleman  will  submit  his 
amendment  in  writing. 

Mr.  Turner.  I  have  an  amendment  which  I 
should  like  to  offer. 
The  Chair.  You  are  not  in  order. 
Mr.  Orr.  I  ask  the  Chair,  if  it  is  in  order  to 
offer  a  substitute? 
The  Chair.  No,  sir. 

The  question  being  taken  on  the  adoption  of 
the  amendment  to  the  amendment,  it  was  re- 
jected. 

The  question  recurring  on  the  adoption  of  the 
amendment,  it  was  adopted. 
The  resolution,  as  amended,  was  then  adopted. 
By  Mr.  Howell  : 

Resolved,  That  the  Committee  on  Printing  be 
authorized  to  contract  for  the  printing  and  bind- 
ing of  blank  copies  of  the  debates  in  and  pro- 
ceedings of  this  Convention. 

Mr.  Howell.  I  will  remark,  Mr.  President, 
that  -k  e  have  provided  for  the  reporting  of  the 
debates  and  proceedings  of  this  Convention,  but 
there  has  been  no  provision  whatever  for  the 
publication  of  these  reports,  and  before  the  Com- 
mittee act  on  the  subject  I  think  they  should 
have  authority  given  them  by  the  Convention.  I 
suppose  it  is  the  sense  of  the  Convention,  that 
the  debates  should  be  published  in  some  perma- 
nent way,  together  with  the  proceedings  of  the 
Convention,  and  in  order  to  ascertain  the  sense  of 
the  Convention  on  that  subject,  and  authorize  the 
Committee  to  take  action,  I  present  this  resolu- 
tion. I  will  remark  further,  that  if  the  debates 
are  to  be  published,  it  is  highly  proper  for  the 


purpose  of  economy,  that  we  should  know  it  at 
an  early  period.  The  debates  are  published  in  ft 
city  paper,  and  they  can  be  printed  for  perma- 
nent use  much  cheaper  each  morning,  as  I  am  in- 
formed by  the  printer  the  types  being  up,  than 
at  a  future  period,  or  after  the  adjournment  of 
the  Convention. 

The  Chair.  What  number  does  the  gentleman 
propose  to  fill  the  blank  with  ? 

Mr.  Howell.  I  have  no  definite  number  in  my 
mind.    I  will  suggest  5,000  copies. 

Mr.  Sheeley.  Mr.  President,  I  do  not  know 
that  we  possess  the  authority  of  publishing  the 
debates  of  this  Convention,  but  if  I  recollect  the 
law  calling  this  Convention  aright,  there  was  no 
provision  made  whatever  for  this  purpose.  There 
is  no  provision  authorizing  this  Convention  to 
have  even  reporters  employed  for  the  purpose  of 
preserving  the  debates.  If  my  recollection  serves 
me  right,  the  Convention  which  sat  in  Jefferson 
City  in  1845  did  employ  reporters.  They  did  not 
undertake  to  have  the  debates  published,  but 
left  it  for  future  legislation  on  the  part  of  the 
Legislature.  I  do  not  think  these  debates 
have  ever  been  published  yet.  I  may  be 
wrong  in  my  recollection,  but  such  it 
is  at  present.  Then,  sir,  I  am  opposed  to  this 
Convention  undertaking  to  spend  the  money  of 
the  State,  unless  we  have  the  authority  of  the 
Legislature  to  take  it  out  of  the  treasury  at  once. 
We  have  no  authority  to  bind  the  State  of  Mis- 
souri to  these  reporters,  nor  have  we  any  author- 
ity to  bind  the  State  to  a  publisher  of  these  de- 
bates, and  if  we  do,  the  Legislature  may  repudi- 
ate our  action.  We  cannot  spend  money  under 
the  Constitution,  and  the  only  chance  we  have 
for  getting  at  the  State's  money  independent  of 
the  Legislature,  is  to  revolutionize  the  State  and 
adopt  a  new  Constitution.  I  therefore  move  to 
lay  the  resolution  on  the  table.  It  is  suggested 
to  me  around  here,  that  the  printing  proposed 
will  cost  at  least  $10,000. 

Mr.  Howell.    Mr.  President — 

The  Chair.  The  gentleman  is  not  in  order. 
A  motion  to  table  is  before  the  House. 

Mr.  Howell.  I  only  wish  to  correct  the  gen- 
tleman in  regard  to  a  portion  of  his  argument. 
I  remarked  that  I  offered  the  resolution  in  order 
to  test  the  sense  of  the  Convention  at  this  early 
period,  as  it  would  be  a  matter  of  economy  that 
the  proceedings  should  be  printed  now,  if  printed 
at  all.     [Here  the  hammer  fell.] 

The  Chair.  The  question  will  be  on  laying 
the  resolution  on  the  table.  Motion  to  table  sus- 
tained. 

By  Mr.  Bush: 

Resolved,  That  the  history  of  all  nations,  from 
ancient  to  modem  times,  has  proven  that  the 
dismemberment  of  one  nation  into  several  gov- 
ernments or  confederacies,  has  resulted  in  anar- 
chy, despotism  and  ruin;  and  that,  as  "In  union 


46 


there  is  strength,"  so  in  disunion  there  is  de- 
struction. 

Referred  to  the  Committee  on  Federal  Rela- 
tions. 

By  Mr.  Ray  : 

Resolved,  That  the  Committee  on  Printing  be 
requested  to  inquire  into  the  propriety  of  having 

number  of  copies  of  the  debates  published 

in  pamphlet  form,  and  report  the  same  to  the 
Convention  for  further  action. 

Mr.  Rat.  I  presume  the  resolution  sufficiently 
explains  itself.  It  simply  authorizes  a  Commit- 
tee to  inquire  into  the  propriety  of  having  the  de- 
bates published. 

The  resolution  was  adopted. 

By  Mr.  Lee  per  : 

Resolved,  By  the  people  of  Missouri,  in  Con- 
vention assembled :  Whereas,  great  disquietude 
exists  in  this  Government,  in  the  Gulf  States  in 
the  South,  by  the  aggressions  of  the  extreme 
Northern  States,  therefore 

Resolved,  That  this  Convention  condemns  the 
aggressive  policy  of  the  North,  and  the  hasty  and 
precipitate  action  of  the  Southern  or  seceding 
States. 

Resolved,  That  the  course  pursued  by  South 
Carolina  and  the  other  seceding  States,  is  no  rea- 
son that  Missouri  should  follow  their  example. 

Resolved,  That  it  is  the  duty  of  Missouri  and 
the  other  Border  States  to  take  a  firm  position 
for  the  maintenance  of  the  Union,  the  preserva- 
tion of  our  Constitution,  and  the  honor  of  our 
flag,  and,  if  necessary,  to  form  a  Central  Republic 
of  the  Border  States,  both  North  and  South, 
adopting  the  Constitution  as  our  supreme  law, 
the  8 tars  and  stripes  as  our  ensign,  and  invite  our 
wandering  sister  States  to  assume  their  original 
places  m  the  family  of  States  forming  this  great 
Confederacy. 

Resolved,  That  this  Convention  is  opposed  to 
the  present  executive  attempting  to  coerce  or 
force  the  seceding  States  back  into  the  Union, 
and  that  this  Convention  is  equally  opposed  to 
South  Carolina  attacking,  or  inaugurating  a  war, 
for  the  purpose  of  capturing  any  fort,  fortifica- 
tion or  other  public  property  belonging  to  the 
United  States. 

Resolved,  That  the  people  wish  all  the  nation- 
al difficulties  settled,  by  some  just  and  honorable 
compromise,  and  would  for  this  purpose  recom- 
mend those  resolutions  known  as  the  Crittenden 
resolutions,  or  any  other  plan  that  would  do  jus- 
tice both  to  the  North  and  the  Sonth. 

Referred  to  Committee  on  Federal  Relations. 

By  Mr.  Long  : 

Resolved,  That  the  Inaugural  Address  of  Pres- 
ident Lincoln  is  one  of  peace,  and  not  of  war. 

Mr.  Howell.  I  move  to  lay  the  resolution  on 
the  table. 

Mr.  Moss.    Is  that  motion  debatable? 

The  Chair.    No  sir,  it  is  not. 


Mr.  Moss.    Then  I  wish  the  gentleman  to  with- 
draw the  motion  for  a  moment. 

Mr.  Howell.    I  will  do  so  as   a  matter  of 
courtesy. 

Mr.  Moss.  I  arose  yesterday  in  my  seat,  6ir, 
and  advocated  the  proposition  to  submit  the  Pres- 
ident's message  to  this  House  for  discussion,  and 
I  did  so,  sir,  from  the  best  motives.  I  did  so,  sir, 
knowing  the  effect  that  this  document  would 
have  upon  the  people  of  Missouri,  in  the  hands  of 
designing  men,  whose  hearts  are  bent  upon  break- 
ing up  this  Confederacy.  Sir,  I  hail  from  a  coun- 
ty in  which  Lincoln  did  not  get  a  single  vote,  and, 
sir,  when  the  secessionists  raised  their  flag  in 
that  county,  and  went  to  the  ballot  box 
they  did  not  get  two  hundred  votes 
in  the  county.  My  constituents,  sir, 
are  Union  men— devoted  to  the  Union — and  they 
lean  to  no  sectional  party.  They  are  men  that 
dare,  in  this  hour  of  trial,  to  stand  between  the 
two  sections  and  demand  peace.  And,  sir,  I  tell 
the  friends  of  Union  in  this  Assembly,  that  if  that 
message,  in  the  hands  of  sharp  and  designing 
politicians,  is  permitted  to  be  used  as  a  lever  to 
force  the  war  question  in  Missouri,  the  friends  of 
the  Union  will  melt  away  like  snow-flakes.  I  now 
tell  you,  Union  men,  if  you  desire  to  hold  your 
forces  together,  you  must  give  encouragement  to 
your  friends  in  the  country.  They  are  looking  to 
you  for  counsel.  They  have  sent  men  to  this 
Convention  in  whom  they  have  faith,  and  I  tell 
you  the  construction  put  upon  that  message  will 
have  a  telling  influence  upon  the  fate  of  this 
Union,  and  decidedly  upon  the  fate  of  Mis- 
souri, and  I  hope  that  the  Union  men  in  this 
Convention — men  of  age  and  experience- 
men  who  have  got  a  reputation  in  Missouri — 
men  whose  voices  will  be  heard  and  counsel 
relied  upon — will  come  to  the  rescue  this  day, 
and  send  out  to  the  people  of  Missouri  a  proper 
interpretation  of  this  message.  I  am  one  of 
those,  gentlemen  of  the  Convention,  who  believe 
that  the  message  looks  to  peace.  I  am  a  Southern 
man  in  every  sense  of  the  word.  Every  impulse 
of  my  heart  beats  in  unison  to  the  interest  and 
cause  of  the  South,  and  I  desire  to  protect  South- 
ern institutions,  and  in  doing  so,  to  preserve  this 
Union  as  the  greatest  guarantee  of  protection  for 
those  institutions.  I  desire  the  friends  of  the 
cause  I  advocate,  to  come  forward  to-day,  and  let 
the  people  of  Missouri  understand  what  this  Con- 
vention thinks  of  that  message.  I  believe,  sir, 
that  any  man  of  common  sense  can  demonstrate 
that  Lincoln  is  inclined  for  peace,  and  that  posi- 
tion can  be  sustained  by  reference  to  his  message; 
and  now,  without  further  discussion,  I  hope  that 
you  will  pass  this  resolution,  for,  I  tell  you,  friends 
of  the  Union,  that  upon  what  is  done  here  to-day 
will  depend  greatly  the  fate  of  Missouri.  This,  as 
I  remarked  before,  will  be  a  prominent  lever  in 
the  hands  of  the  enemies  of  the  Union,  and  I 


47 


warn  you  to  head  off"  their  operations  by  sending 
out  to  the  people  a  proper  interpretation  of  this 
message.     [Slight  applause.] 

Mr.  Hendricks.  I  believe  I  shall  express  the 
sense  of  ray  constituents  if  I  vote  for  that  resolu- 
tion. 

Mr.  C  B  a  w  ford  .    I  move  to  lay  it  on  the  table. 

Mr. .     I  call  for  the  ayes  and  noes. 

EXPLANATION   OF   VOTES. 

Mr.  Bogy.  I  wish  before  voting  on  this  pro- 
position to  explain  my  vote.  I  do  not  wish  to  be 
understood  by  my  vote  as  expressing  an  opinion 
in  regard  to  the  resolution.  I  shall  vole  to  lay 
the  resolution  on  the  table  because  I  look  upon  it 
as  being  rather  a  firebrand  than  otherwise. 

Mr.  Comingo.  I  wish  to  state  my  reasons  in 
favor  of  laying  the  resolution  on  the  table,  and  I 
would  be  willing  to  discuss  this  matter  this  morn- 
ing if  I  thought  by  so  doing  we  could  give  quiet 
to  the  country,  but  I  believe  the  construction  we 
might  put  upon  it  would  throw  no  light  upon  the 
subject,  and  I  think  we  have  no  more  power 
or  ability  to  construe  that  instrument  than  our 
constituents  have  who  sent  us  here.  I  presume 
they  have  their  opinions  in  regard  to  it.  I  pre- 
Bume  our  opinions  would  give  but  little  assurance 
to  the  people  in  regard  to  the  character  of  that 
message.  Then,  sir,  we  have  no  more  right  than 
our  constituents  have  to  interpret  this  message. 
We  may  have  more  light  upon  the  subject  by  the 
President's  own  acts  in  a  few  days.  The  Presi- 
dent may  unmistakably  interpret  the  meaning  of 
this  Inaugural  message.  Although  we  may  have 
the  power  to  interpret  it,  yet  I  trust  if  we  have 
the  power  that  the  Convention  will — 

The  Chair.  The  gentleman  must  merely  give 
a  brief  statement  as  to  the  reason  why  he  casts 
his  vote. 
Mr.  Comingo.  Well,  sir,  I  vote  aye. 
Mr.  Crawford.  I  made  the  motion  to  lay  this 
resolution  on  the  table,  not  because  I  have  any 
fear  of  expressing  my  opinions  in  regard  to  the 
message  of  President  Lincoln,  but  because  I 
thought  this  Convention  had  better  meet  here, 
and  continue  to  meet  in  the  same  spirit  of  con- 
ciliation and  compromise,  in  which  we  have 
heretofore  met;  because  I  thought  that  if  that 
message  was  debated  hero  this  morning,  and 
befoie  we  proceeded  to  consider  the  report  of 
the  Committee  on  Federal  Relations  that  we  might 
feel  towards  each  other,  not  so  much  like  Union 
men  :<s  we  now  tfeeL  I  wish  to  state  emphatically 
;h:U  I  am  not  in  favor  of  any  gag  law,  and  I  did 
not  offer  this  proposition  for  that  purpose,  but 
because  I  believed  that  by  bringing  up  this  sub- 
ject we  should  bring  up  dis.-ension  and  destroy 
compromise 

Mr.  Foster.  Perhaps  I  should  say  a  word  in 
explanation  of  my  vote.  I  find,  sir,  there  is  a 
disposition  on  the  part  of  certain  gentlemen  on 


this  floor  to  enter  into  an  investigation  of  that 
message,  and,  sir,  as  they  have  manifested  a  dis- 
position to  consult  on  the  subject,  I  am  not  dis- 
posed, sir,  as  an  humble  representative  of  this 
body  to  shrink  from  a  responsibility  of  any  char- 
acter whatever.  I  am  alone  responsible  to  my 
constituents  for  my  action  in  this  body,  together 
with  my  colleagues,  who  represent  more  sovereign 
people  than  any  other  three  gentlemen  on  this 
floor.  I  shall  therefore  vote  against  laying  the 
resolution  on  the  table. 

Mr.  Gantt.  1  wish  briefly  to  state  the  reasons 
why  I  shall  vote  against  laying  this  resolution  on 
the  table.  It  has  been  said  that  the  message  is 
not  definite,  and  many  are  doubtful  as  to  its 
meaning.  In  what  better  way  can  we  arrive  at 
the  true  construction  of  that  message  than  by 
comparing  our  views  each  with  the  other  and 
discussing  the  different  interpretations  that  may 
be  put  upon  it.  In  the  hope  that  an  opportunity 
may  be  offered  to  do  that,  and  that  the  discus- 
sion may  be  carried  on  in  a  fair,  candid  and 
fraternal  spirit,  and  that  the  message  may  be 
considered  in  all  its  parts,  that  we  may  look  to 
the  whole  for  the  purpose  of  ascertaining  the 
meaning  of  each  sentence,  so  that  we  may  arrive 
at  the  best  construction,  and  upon  the  most  sure 
basis  come  to  a  conclusion  as  to  what  is  the 
meaning  of  the  man  who  now  sits  as  Ch'ef 
Executive  in  his  seat  at  Washington,  I  shall 
vote  against  stifling  debate  and  laying  the  reso- 
lution on  the  table. 

Mr.  Gravelly.  I  desire  to  remark,  that  in 
voting  upon  this  question,  on  laying  it  on  the 
table,  that  in  voting  in  the  affirmative,  I  do  not 
desire  to  be  understood  as  declaring  the  Inaugu- 
ral address  is  significant  of  war,  but  in  order 
that  this  Convention  may  proceed  with  the  busi- 
ness which  I  think  now  directly  requires  its  ac- 
tion.   I  shall  vote  aye. 

Mr.  Hatcher.  Believing  that  there  is  much 
truth  in  the  statement  made  by  a  gentleman  on 
this  floor  yesterday,  that  there  are  about  as  many 
opinions  in  regard  to  the  Inaugural  Address  as 
there  are  delegates  to  this  Convention,  and  be- 
lieving that  this  Convention  cannot  easily  con- 
strue its  real  meaning,  I  think  it  is  best  to  let  the 
President's  actions  construe  the  President's  words. 
And  as  "actions  speak  louder  than  words,"  I  pro- 
pose to  wait  until  action  on  the  part  of  the  Presi- 
dent will  speak  the  meaning  of  those  words.  I 
therefore  vote  aye. 

Mr.  Irwin.  I  shall  vote  for  laying  the  resolu- 
tion upon  the  table,  sir,  and  I  shall  do  it  for  the 
same  reason  which  I  gave  yesterday — against  go- 
ing into  a  Committee  of  the  Whole  upon  the  In- 
augural Address.  I  believe,  sir,  a  discussion  on 
this  Inaugural  Address  will  lead  to  a  purely  po- 
litico.! dis-ussioa,  and  that  there  will  be  an  unbe- 
coming exhibition  of  party  feeling  and  party 
spirit.     I  take  occasion  to  remark,  sir,  that  how- 


48 


ever  much  I  may  indorse  the  sentiments  of  that 
resolution,  yet  for  the  reasons  I  have  given  I  shall 
vote  aye. 

Mr.  Linton  :  Regarding  the  Inaugural  as  I  do, 
as  a  message  of  peace,  I  shall  vote  no. 

Mr.  Makmaduke  :  In  voting  in  the  affirmative 
on  this  question,  sir,  I  do  not  wish  to  be  under- 
stood that  it  is  offered  for  the  object  of  shuffling 
off  the  responsibility  of  the  resolution  on  the  one 
hand,  or  obviating  it  on  the  other.  I  have  fre- 
quently expressed  my  opinion  upon  the  Inaugu- 
ral. I  regard  it  as  a  peace  message;  but  whether 
it  is  for  peace  or  war,  I  think  the  discussion  now 
will  have  an  unhappy  tendency  and  an  unhappy 
result  on  the  action  of  the  Convention,  and  as  I 
think  the  resolution  is  premature,  I  shall  there- 
fore vote  aye. 

Mr.  Norton  :  In  voting  against  laying  the  res- 
olution on  the  table,  I  do  so  for  the  purpose  of 
showing  my  feelings  in  favor  of  assuming  the  re- 
sponsibility of  expressing  my  views  in  regard  to 
the  construction  to  be  placed  on  that  address.  I 
shall  vote  no. 

Mr.  Orr.  It  is  stated  here  that  the  bringing  up 
of  this  discussion  will  necessarily  awaken  party 
feeling.  I  hope  this  is  not  so.  We  shall  certain- 
ly have  to  meet  this  issue  before  we  leave  here, 
and  I  know  no  better  time  to  meet  it  than  the 
present.  I  vote  against  laying  the  resolution  on 
the  table,  because  I  believe  the  message  to  be  a 
peace  measure,  and  because  I  believe  that  the 
people  should  know  what  we  think  about  it.  It  has 
been  stated  that  the  people  are  as  competent  to 
form  their  conclusions  as  we  are,  but  we  are 
sent  here  to  take  into  consideration  our  Federal 
relations,  and  for  this  reason,  I  vote  no. 

Mr  Phillips.  I  will  just  state  that  I  do  not  re- 
gard the  message  as  being  a  war  message;  yet, 
sir,  believing,  as  I  do,  that  ample  opportunity 
will  be  afforded  before  the  Convention  adjourns, 
for  members  to  discuss  this  message  in  all  its  de- 
tails, and  thinking  that  no  harm  can  result  from 
waiting  until  the  proper  time  arrives  to  discuss 
it,  I  shall  vote  aye. 

Mr.  Rat.  Understanding  that  a  refusal  to  lay 
the  resolution  on  the  table  will  leave  the  question 
open  for  discussion,  I  vote  no. 

Mr.  Redd.  I  view  this  message  as  a  decla- 
ration of  war  against  the  institutions  of  the 
South.  In  my  judgment,  it  involves  the  doc- 
trines of  George  III,  and  declares  war  in  the 
same  way  he  declared  war  against  the  colonics. 
He  avowed  the  purpose  to  execute  the  law  with- 
in the  limits,  and  the  same  kind  of  a  law,  the  law 
for  the  collecting  of  taxes. 

The  Chair.  I  will  remark  to  the  gentleman 
that  he  cannot  enter  into  a  discussion  of  the 
merits  of  the  resolution.  He  can  only  give,  in  a 
brief  manner,  his  reasons  why  he  votes  for  or 
against  laying  the  resolution  on  the  table. 


Mr.  Redd.  I  was  not  about  to  enter  into  any 
argument  to  show  my  views  ai-e  correct.  That 
was  not  my  purpose.  I  was  merely  stating  my 
belief  as  to  whether  this  was  a  war  or  a  peace 
measure. 

The  Chair.  That,  the  gentleman  has  not  the 
right  to  do;  he  has  the  right  to  give  his  reasons 
why  he  will  vote  for  or  against  it,  but  he  must 
not  enter  into  a  discussion  on  the  merits  of  the 
subject. 

Mr.  Redd.  I  submit  to  the  ruling  of  the  Chair, 
but  I  followed  only  the  example  of  a  gentleman 
who  preceded  me  on  that  subject. 

The  Chair.  The  gentlemen  did  not  take  as 
much  latitude  as  the  gentleman  now  on  the  floor, 
but  he  was  stopped  by  the  Chair. 

Mr.  Redd.  I  will  say  then  that  I  will  vote  aye, 
and  that  I  do  not  believe  Missouri  is  prepared  to 
take  up  the  gauntlet. 

Mr.  Ritchet.  Believing  as  I  do  that  the  people 
we  have  the  honor  to  represent  here,  in  part,  have 
the  ability  and  the  right  to  interpret  that  message 
for  themselves,  and  believing  it  to  be  my  duty, 
sir,  to  try  and  transact  business  here  that  they 
have  not  the  power  to  do,  I  feel  then,  sir,  it  is  my 
duty  as  one  of  their  delegates  to  vote  aye. 

Mr.  Rowland.  I  wish  to  give  my  reasons  why 
I  shall  cast  my  vote  against  laying  the  resolution 
on  the  table.  I  believe,  sir,  that  if  the  proposition 
is  laid  on  the  table,  the  impression  will  go  to 
the  country  that  this  Convention  has  decided  that 
Mr.  Lincoln's  Inaugural  Address  is  a  war  meas- 
ure. I  consider  that  this  is  a  test  question,  and 
that  it  will  have  that  effect  upon  the  people  of  the 
country,  if  we  vote  to  lay  the  proposition  on  the 
table — or  to  make  them  infer  that  we  have  most 
assuredly  decided  that  Lincoln  is  to  make  war 
upon  them.  I  agree  with  the  gentleman  from 
Clay — I  believe  this  message  is  a  peace  measure, 
and  I  do  not  wish  my  constituents  to  hear  that  I 
have  voted  against  it. 

Mr.  Shackelford  of  Howell :  When- 1  voted 
yesterday  and  the  day  before,  against  committing 
this  thing  to  a  Committee  of  the  Whole,  I  did  it 
believing  we  were  forestalling  or  endeavoring  to 
forestall  public  opinion  in  advance  of  the  report 
of  the  Committee  on  Federal  Relations.  Believ- 
ing so,  I  voted  against  considering  it,  and  I  am 
unwilling  now  to  consider  it,  inasmuch  as  I  think 
the  vote  amounts  to  nothing,  and  because  I  be- 
lieve my  constituents  can  construe  it  for  them- 
selves just  as  well  as  I  can.  I  believe  it  will  fore- 
stall the  action  of  the  committee,  and  as  there 
will  be  opportunity  offered  every  member  of  this 
house  to  make  speeches  upon  questions  whi  h 
that  committee  will  elaborate,  after  that  commit- 
tee has  reported,  and  as  I  am  unwilling  to  be 
placed  in  the  inconsistent  position  of  doimr  one 
thing  one  day  and  backing  down  the  next,  I 
therefore  vote  aye. 


49 


Mr.  Turner.  "Without  giving  any  explana- 
tion of  my  opinions  as  to  the  message  of  Mr.  Lin- 
coln, I  propose  to  give  a  few  reasons  why  I  shall 
vote  no.  I  say  the  people  of  Missouri  are  looking 
upon  this  Convention,  and  awaiting  with  breath- 
less anxiety  the  action  of  this  body.  This  Con- 
vention may  be  for  the  weal  or  woe  of  the  whole 
nation,  and  I  think,  sir,  tlrat  we  are  sitting  here 
and  doing  nothing  but  favoring  the  weak  knees 
and  tender  toes  of  the  disunionists  of  the  Legisla- 
ture, and  the  disunionists  of  Missouri,  who  are 
working  in  every  possible  way  to  make  the  peo- 
ple of  Missouri  believe  that  Mr.  Lincoln  has  made 
a  declaration  of  war  upon  the  States  that  have 
seceded.  I  think  we  should  face  the  music,  and 
give  the  people  of  Missouri  an  expression  of  our 
views  as  to  whether  Mr.  Lincoln  has  made  a  war 
or  peace  message.    I  shall,  therefore,  vote  no. 

Mr.  Wooeeolk.  It  seems,  sir,  that  Acre  are 
different -views  in  regard  to  the  Inaugural.  Some 
regard  it  as  a  peace  measure,  and  some  as  a  war 
measure.  Reports  from  the  seceding  States  show 
that  they  regard  it  as  a  declaration  of  war.  I, 
myself,  individually,  regard  it  as  a .peace  measure. 
I  do  not  wish  the  Convention  to  hastily  indorse 
the  Inaugural,  and,  in  my  opinion  we  had  best 
take  no  action  at  all  in  regard  to  it  until  Ave  are 
satisfied  as  to  its  real  character.  If  it  is  a  peace 
measure,  I  indorse  it.  If  a  war  measure  I 
shall  oppose  it,  but  I  do  not  desire  this  Conven- 
tion to  indicate  to  the  seceding  States  that  we 
intend  to  indorse  anything  that  they  consider  in- 
dicates coercion  or  a  declaration  of  war.  For 
these  reasons  I  do  not  desire  an  expression  of 
opinion  as  to  the  Inaugural,  and  I  shall  vote  aye. 

Mr.  Doniphan.  I  will  state  Avhile  the  Clerk  is 
casting  up  the  vote  that  I  have  been  requested  by 
the  Chairman  of  the  Committee  on  Federal  Re- 
lations to  inform  the  House  that  we  have  got 
through  with  our  business,  and  that  Judge  Gam- 
ble will  present  a  report  to-morrow,  at  11  o'clock, 
and  therefore  it  is  unnecessary  to  offer  any  reso- 
lutions to  be  referred  to  that  Committee. 

The  vote  was  then  announced  as  follows  : 

Ayes— Messrs.  Allen,  Bartlett,  Bass,  Bast,Bogy, 
Brown,  Calhoun,  Cayce,  Chenault,  Collier,  Co- 
mingo,  Crawford,  Doniphan,  Donnell,  Drake, 
Dunn,  Frayser,  Flood,  Givens,  Gorin,  Gravelly, 
Harbin,  Hatcher,  Hill,  Holt,  Hough,  Howell, 
Hudgins,  Irwin,  Jamison,  Marmaduke,  McCor- 
mack,  McDowell,  Noell,  Phillips,  Pomeroy,  Ran- 
kin, Redd,  Ritchey,  Sawyer,  Saver,  Shackelford  of 
Howard,  Shackelford  of  St.  Louis,  Sheeley,  Wal- 
ler, Watkins,  Wilson,  Woolfolk,  Vanbuskirk 
Zimmerman,  Mr.  President — 52. 

Noes— Messrs. Breckinridge,Broadhead,Bridge, 
Bush,  Eitzen,  Foster,  Gantt,  Henderson,  Hen- 
dricks, Hitchcock,  Holmes,  How,  Isbell,  Jackson, 
Johnson,  Kidd,  Leeper,  Linton,  Long,  Marvin, 
Maupin,  McClurg,  McFerran,  Meyer,  Morrow, 
Moss,  Norton,  Orr,  Ray,  Rowland,  Scott,  Smith 


of  Linn,  Smith  of  St.  Louis,  Turner,  Welch,  Wood- 
son, Wright— 37. 

And  the  resolution  was  laid  on  the  table. 

Mr.  Turner.  Mr.  President— Some  days  airo 
I  offered  a  resolution  to  appoint  a  committee  to 
whom  all  proposed  amendments  to  the  Constitu- 
tion should  be  referred.  It  was  laid  on  the  table. 
If  it  is  in  order  I  move  to  take  it  up  now. 

Mr.  Welch.  I  had  the  honor,  sir,  in  the  early 
part  of  this  session,  to  offer  to  the  Convention  a 
proposed  amendment  to  the  Constitution  of  this 
State  in  regard  to  special  legislation.  That  amend- 
ment, by  a  vote  of  the  Convention,  was  laid  upon 
the  table.  The  proposition  which  is  now  before 
the  Convention,  viz.,  to  take  up  the  resolution 
which  has  been  referred  to  by  the  gentleman,  I 
hope  will  meet  with  the  approbation  of  the  Con- 
vention. There  are  a  number  of  gentlemen,  sir, 
in  this  Convention,  who  believe  that  this  Conven- 
tion has  the  power,  and  that  it  is  their  duty,  to 
make  certain  alterations  in  the  fundamental  law 
of  this  State,  and  there  are  other  gentlemen  who 
believe  that  this  Convention  either  has  not  the 
power  or  should  not  assume  the  power  of  making 
an  amendment  to  that  Constitution.  I  am  desir- 
ous that  this  committee  shall  be  appointed  by  the 
President,  that  they  may,  whenever  a  proposition 
is  referred  to  them,  report  back  to  the  Conven- 
tion whether  or  not,  in  their  judgment,  the  Con- 
vention either  has  the  power  to  arrend  the  Con- 
stitution, or  whether  it  is  right  and  prudent 
that  they  should  do  so.  In  my  judgment 
there  are  several  amendments  that  are  neces- 
sary to  the  Constitution  of  this  State,  which  I  be- 
lieve the  people  and  the  times  demand,  and  I  am 
exceedingly  anxious,  sir,  that  the  committee  shall 
be  appointed  and  this  proposition  be  referred  to 
them,  in  order  that  we  may  ascertain  the  sense  of 
the  Convention  as  to  whether  they  will  entertain 
any  such  proposition  at  all  or  not.  Now,  those 
gentlemen  upon  this  floor  who  have  the  honor, 
like  myself,  to  hold  seats  in  the  Legislature,  know, 
and  your  honor,  from  your  recollection  of  the 
time  when  you  filled  the  executive  chair,  well 
knows  the  utter  abuse  to  which  the  Legislature  of 
this  State  carries  this  system  of  special  legislation. 
Your  honor  well  knows  that  our  statute  books, 
for  the  last  ten  years,  are  filled  with  acts  declaring 
boys  of  age— declaring  county  roads  State  roads- 
changing  county  roads,  changing  State  roads, 
abolishing  State  roads,  &c.  They  are  also  full  of 
special  acts  authorizing  the  sale  of  real  estate  be- 
longing to  minors,  or  persons  not  capable  of  man- 
aging their  own  affairs.  Now,  sir,  I  having  had 
some  experience  in  the  Legislature,  know  the  evil 
and  the  abuses  to  which  this  system  of  special 
legislation  is  carried.  I  know,  sir,  that  in  differ- 
ent sections  of  this  State,  where  there  are  contro- 
versies— for  instance,  in  a  particular  neighbor- 
hood where  controversy  exists,  as  to  which  is 
the    proper   route   for   a   State   road  to  run — 


50 


instead    of    making    their   application    to    the 
County  Court,  where  both  sides  can  be  heard 
and    full    justice    be    done    to    both     parties, 
one  party  sneaks  off  to  the  Legislature,  unknown 
to  the  other  party,  and  the  first  thing  the  commu- 
nity knows  is  that  a  bill  has  been  passed  changing 
or  establishing  a  State  road  in  direct  opposition 
to  perhaps  a  majority  of  the  people  of  the  neigh- 
borhood through  which  the  road  will  run.    So  it 
is  in  regard  to  those  bills  and  acts  of  the  Legisla- 
ture authorizing  or  directing  the  sale  of  real  es- 
tate belonging  to  little  children.    Why,  sir,  in  the 
last  Legislature  there  was  an  act  introduced  au- 
thorizing the  sale  of  thirty-five  hundred  acres  of 
land  in  my  county,  situated  upon  the  line  of  the 
Pacific  Railroad.    I  took  it  upon  myself,  in  obe- 
dience to  what  I  believed  to  be  my  duty,  to  aid  in 
defeating   that   bill  in  the  House  when  it  came 
from  the  Senate,  and  I  have  received  the  hearty 
approbation  of  my  constituents    for    that    act. 
Sir,  I  believe  this  system  of  special  legislation 
meets  with  universal  condemnation  all  over  the 
State.    I  am  anxious  that  this  Convention  shall 
take  that  question  up.    It  is  useless  to  look  to  a 
reform  from  the  Legislature  itself.    You  might  as 
well  try  to  accomplish  an  impossible  feat  as  to 
ask  the  Legislature  of  the  State  to  remedy  this 
great     and     growing      evil.      Why,      sir,     if 
you     offer     an     amendment     of     this     char- 
acter     in      the      Legislature,      almost      every 
member  on  the  floor  has  a  railroad  bill  in  his 
pocket,   or  a  bill  authorizing  the  sale  of  real 
estate  by  a  minor,  or  a  bill  declaring  some  little 
boy  of  age,  and  every  man  on  the  floor  almost 
is  interested  in  the  defeat  of  such  an  amendment. 
They  are  interested.    Their  constituents  have  re- 
quested them  to  introduce  these  measures  for 
their  relief  and  satisfaction,  and  every  member 
having  a  bill  of  that  kind,  or  perhaps  a  drawer- 
full,  finds  himself  in  this  condition.    He  must 
cither  oppose  the  proposition  to  amend  the  Con- 
stitute i  so  as  to  destroy  that  system  of  legisla- 
tion or  else  he  violates  the  will  of  some  few  of 
his  constituents. 

Now,  sir,  this  body  comes  here  fresh  from  the 
people  of  the  State.  Every  man  on  this  floor, 
nearly— I  may  presume  that  every  man  upon  this 
floor  has  had  enough  experience  to  know  that 
this  system  of  special  legislation  is  an  outrage 
upon  the  rights  of  the  people  of  the  Stale.  In- 
stead, sir,  as  I  have  already  remarked,  of  hav- 
ing these  roads  changed  by  the  order  of  the 
Comty  Court  at  their  own  expense,  they  go 
to  the  City  of  Jefferson  and  consume  the 
time  of  the  two  Houses — which  are  conyened 
at  an  expense  of  more  than  $1,000  per  day— they 
reqnire  our  clerks  to  enroll  their  bills,  and  our 
public  printer  to  print  them  and  our  binder 
to  bind  them,  and  it  all  comes  out  of  the  State 
Treasury,  when,  sir,  it  is  a  matter  of  private  in- 
terest to  them,  and  they  alone  should  pay  for  it. 


Sir,  this  is  a  matter  of  some  importance  to  the 
people  of  the  State.  I  was  not  pleased  when  the 
Convention  so  summarily  disposed  of  the  amend- 
ment to  the  Constitution  which  I  had  the  honor 
to  offer  a  few  days  ago;  but  of  course  I  am  will- 
ing to  be  guided  by  the  will  of  the  body  of 
which  I  may  be  a  member.  I  hope,  however, 
that  this  Convention  will  authorize  the  appoint- 
ment of  that  Committee.  I  hope  the  Committee 
will  be  composed  of  eminent  legal  gentlemen  on 
this  floor,  (and  there  are  many  of  them,)  and  let 
them  decide,  first,  whether  this  Convention  has 
the  right,  under  the  Bill  of  Rights  and  the  Con- 
stitution of  Missouri,  to  alter  and  abolish  the 
Constitution  itself;  and,  secondly,  whether  it 
would  be  wise  and  prudent  to  exercise  it.  For 
my  own  part,  I  do  not  for  one  moment  doubt  but 
what  this  Convention  is  fully  empowered,  under 
our  Bill  of  Rights,  not  only  to  alter  but  abolish 
the  fundamental  law  of  the  State,  provided,  that 
any  instrument  that  they  may  substitute  instead 
shall  be  republican  in  form. 

Mr.  Smith,  of  St.  Louis.  I  rise  to  a  point  of 
order.  A  motion  to  take  up  a  resolution 
from  the  table  is  not  debatable.  I  submit 
that  point.  Any  member,  as  I  understand 
the  rules,  may  object  to  taking  it  up,  and  then 
the  sense  of  the  Convention  should  be  taken. 

The  Chair.    I  will  remark  that  I  have  allowed 
more  latitude  to  the  gentleman  than  would  be 
strictly  proper,  for  the  reason  that  there  seemed 
to  be  nothing  else  before  the  Convention. 
Mr.  Gantt.    I  desire  the  resolution  read. 
The  Secretary  read  the  resolution. 
Mr.  Gantt.    I  have  an  amendment  which  I 
desire  to  offer. 

The  Chair.    The  gentleman  is  not  in  order,  as 
the  resolution  is  not  yet  before  the  house. 
Mr.  Turner.    It  is  perhaps  proper  that  I  make 

a  remark  here 

The  Chair.  A  point  of  order  has  been  raised. 
All  debate  is  out  of  order. 

Mr.  Turner.  I  rise  to  a  privileged  question. 
I  understand  it  has  been  said  that  I  proposed  to 
interfere  with  the  functions  of  the  officers  of  the 
State  of  Missouri — that  I  am  in  favor  of  ousting 
them  out  of  their  office.  I  have  this  to  remark  in 
regard  to  that  statement,  that  such  was  not  my 
intention. 
The  Chair.  I  have  heard  no  such  accusation. 
Mr.  Turner.  It  was  made  outside  of  this 
body. 

The  Chair.  Then  you  cannot  reply  to  it  here. 
The  question  is  on  taking  up  the  resolution. 

The  resolution  was  then  taken  up  by  ayes  46  to 
noes  26. 

Mr.  Gantt.  I  think  that  a  preliminary  inquiry 
will  be  proper.  Entirely  agreeing  with  the  senti- 
ments of  the  gentleman  who  preceded  me,  (Mr. 
Welch,)  I  offer  the  following  resolution  as  a  sub- 
stitute for  that  which  is  now  pending : 


51 


Resolved,  That  a  committee  of  seven  be  ap- 
pointed by  the  chair  with  instructions  to  report  to 
the  Convention  respecting  the  powers  of  this  body 
to  effect  a  reform  of  the  Constitution  of  the  State 
of  Missouri. 

If  this  substitute  is  accepted  by  the  gentleman 
offering  the  first  resolution,  I  have  nothing  more 
to  say. 

Mr.  Turner.  I  suppose  there  can  be  no  doubt 
as  to  the  power  of  the  Convention  to  amend  the 
Constitution.  I  do  not  think  there  is  any  such 
doubt,  still  I  have  no  objection  to  the  substitute. 

Mr.  Welch.  It  occurs  to  me  that  the  original 
resolution  is  preferable  to  the  substitute  which 
has  been  offered  by  the  gentleman  from  St.  Louis. 
If  the  substitute  is  adopted,  the  committee,  after 
having  given  us  their  legal  opinion,  will  have 
nothing  further  to  do — but  if  the  original  resolu- 
tion shall  be  adopted  and  the  proposed  amend- 
ments are  referred  to  the  committee,  they  can  re- 
commend such  of  them  as  they  may  deem  proper; 
and  besides,  sir,  I  can  ask  the  Convention  to 
again  consider  my  proposition,  which  was  re- 
jected a  few  days  ago.  I  hold  that  the  original 
resolution  comprehends  both  the  question  of 
power  and  the  question  of  propriety,  whereas  the 
substitute  only  comprehends  the  question  of 
power. 

Mr.  Gantt.  Will  the  gentleman  give  way  for 
a  moment? 

Mr.  Welch.     Certainly. 

Mr.  Gantt.  I  see  the  course  of  his  remarks, 
and  will  withdraw  my  substitute. 

The  Chair.  The  question  is  on  the  adoption 
of  the  original  resolution. 

Mr.  Comingo.    I  call  for  the  ayes  and  noes. 

Mr.  Dunn.  If  it  is  in  order,  I  will  make  a 
single  remark.  My  own  opinion  is  that  this  Con- 
vention has  unquestionably  the  power  to  amend 
our  State  Constitution.  On  that  subject,  how- 
ever, some  very  able  gentlemen  in  this  body  differ 
with  me.  While  I  accord  this  power  to  the  Con- 
vention, I  must  say  that  I  deem  it  wholly  inex- 
pedient to  amend  the  Constitution,  for  the  simple 
reason  that  we  have  been  elected  for  the  specific 
purpose  of  taking  into  consideration  the  rela- 
tions of  the  State  of  Missouri  to  the  Federal 
Government  and  the  sister  States  of  the  Union. 
We  have  been  elected  with  reference  to  that  sub- 
ject solely  and  exclusively.  If  I  wish  to  sell  forty 
acres  of  land  in  the  county  in  which  I  live,  and 
for  that  purpose  send  a  general  power  of  attorney 
to  a  friend  in  Richmond,  authorizing  him  to  sell 
the  land  belonging  to  me  in  that  county,  and  with 
that  power  should  write  him  a  letter  instructing 
him  to  sell  these  specific  forty  acres,  nobody 
would  doubt  his  legal  power  to  sell  every  acre  of 
my  land,  and  yet  I  would  think  his  conduct  very 
strange  if  he  went  beyond  my  explicit  instructions. 
I  would  think  it  very  strange  if,  on  returning  to 
my  wife  and   children,  I  should  find  that  that 


friend  had  sold  my  house  and  little  farm,  and 
turned  them  adrift  on  the  world.  I  would  state, 
furthermore,  that  I  agree  with  the  gentleman 
from  Johnson,  that  our  Constitution  ought  to  be 
amended,  and  amended  in  the  very  particulai 
specified  by  him.  This  special  legislation  is 
growing  to  be  an  enormous  evil,  and  there  ought 
to  be  an  amendment  to  the  Constitution  which 
would  have  the  effect  of  checking  it.  But  it  is 
entirely  within  the  power  of  the  Legislature  to 
check  it.  The  Legislature  can  stop  this 
special  legislation  without  an  amendment  to 
the  Constitution.  Now,  if  the  Legislature 
were  compelled  to  go  forward  with  this  special 
legislation  unless  we  did  amend  the  Constitution, 
then  I  might  perhaps  be  induced  to  enter  upon 
the  work,  and  introduce  suitable  amendments. 
But  it  is  perfectly  competent  for  the  Legislature,  as 
the  Constitution  now  stands — and  I  presume  the 
member  from  Johnson  will  agree  with  me  in 
this— to  eschew  special  legislation.  They  can  do 
so  to-day,  they  can  do  so  any  time,  so  that  there 
is  in  fact  no  overwhelming  necessity  for  enter- 
ing upon  this  subject  by  this  Convention.  Inas- 
much, therefore,  as  we  have  been  elected  with 
special  reference  to  the  relations  existing  between 
our  State  and  the  Federal  Government  and  sister 
States,  and  with  no  reference  whatever  to  any 
amendments  to  our  State  Constitution— although 
I  believe  we  have  the  power  to  amend  our  State 
Constitution  in  any  particular— still  I  deem  it  in- 
expedient to  enter  upon  that  subject  at  all.  I  pre- 
sume that  in  condemning  special  legislation  the 
Convention  would  be  unanimous,  but  if  we  un- 
dertake to  entertain  one  amendment,  there  is  no 
teling  where  we  may  end.  Some  other  gentle- 
man may  point  out  some  other  amendment 
which  the  exigency  of  the  times  may  require, 
and  another,  another,  and  so  on.  Entertaining 
these  views,  I  am  opposed  to  taking  up  the  sub- 
ject, and  shall  vote  no  to  the  resolution. 

A  vote  was  then  taken,  and  the  resolution  re- 
jected by  the  following  vote: 

Yeas— Messrs.  Bass,  Bast,  Bogy,  Breckinridge, 
Broadhead,  Bridge,  Bush,  Calhoun,  Eitzen,  Fray- 
ser,  Gantt,  Gravelly,  Henderson,  Hendricks, 
Hitchcock,  Holmes,  How,  Howell,  Hudgins,  Is- 
bell,  Jackson,  Johnson,  Kidd,  Leeper,  Marvin, 
Maupin,  McClurg,  Meyer,  Morrow,  Orr,  Rankin, 
Scott,  Smith  of  Linn,  Smith  of  St.  Louis,  Turner, 
W'elch,  Wilson,  Wright,  Zimmerman. 

Nats— Messrs.  Allen,  Bartlett,  Brown,  Cayce, 
Chenault,  Collier,  Comingo,  Crawford,  Doniphan, 
Donnell,  Douglass,  Drake,  Dunn,  Flood,  Foster, 
Givens,  Gorin,  Harbin,  Hatcher,  Hill,  Holt,  Ir- 
win, Jamison,  Linton,  Long,  Marmaduke,  Mat- 
son,  McCormack,  McDowell,  McFerran,  Moss, 
Noell,  Norton,  Phillips,  Pomeroy,  Ray,  Redd, 
Ritchey,  Ross,  Rowland,  Sawyer,  Sayer,  Shack- 
elford of  Howard,  Shackelford  of  St.  Louis,  Slice- 


52 


ley,  Waller,  Woodson,  Woolfolk,  Vanbuskirk, 
Mr.  President. 

Absent — Messrs.  Birch,  Gamble,  Hall  of  Bu- 
chanan, Hall  of  Randolph,  Hough,  Knott,  Pip- 
kin, Stewart,  Tindall,  Watkins. 

On  motion,  the  Convention  adjourned  until  to- 
morrow morninsr.,  at  10  o'clock. 


EIGHTH    DAY. 

St.  Louis,  March  9th,  1861. 

Met  at  10  a.  m. 

Mr.  President  Price  in  the  Chair. 

Prayer  by  the  Chaplain. 

Journal  read  and  approved. 

Mr.  Woolfolk,  from  the  Committee  on  Print- 
ing, made  the  following  report : 

The  Committee  on  Printing  respectfully  report 
that  they  have  made  diligent  inquiries  in  relation 
to  the  printing  to  be  required  by  the  Convention, 
and  find  it  difficult  to  specify  the  precise  kind  of 
work  necessary,  and  it  is  almost  impossible  to 
give  a  schedule  of  prices. 

The  Committee  have  therefore  made  arrange- 
ments with  Geo.  Knapp  &  Co.,  who  agree  to  ex- 
ecute the  printing  for  the  Convention  on  the  same 
basis  as  that  adopted  in  the  Revised  Statutes  of 
Missouri,  and  applicable  to  Public  Printer. 

All  printing  in  book  form  to  be  done  on  good, 
strong  paper,  in  such  type  as  may  be  directed  by 
the  Committee  or  officer  having  superintendence 
thereof.  All  documents  and  other  jobwork  with 
such  type  and  paper  as  may  be  directed  by  the 
proper  officers.  The  printing  to  be  done  prompt- 
ly, in  a  neat  and  workmanlike  manner. 

Price  for  blank  forms,  sixty-two  and  a  half 
cents  for  the  first  eight  quires,  each,  and  for  every 
additional  quire,  fifty  cents. 

For  public  documents,  the  price  to  be  fifty  cents 
per  thousand  ems  for  the  first  hundred  copies,  and 
ten  cents  per  thousand  ems  for  each  additional 
hundred  copies. 

For  book  work,  the  price  to  be  forty  cents  per 
thousand  ems  for  the  first  hundred  copies, 
and  five  cents  per  thousand  cms  each  additional 
hundred  copies. 

For  pressing  sheets,  folding  and  stitching,  and 
covering  with  strong  paper  cover,  not  over  five 
cents  per  volume  for  less  than  thirty-two  pages. 
For  each  volume,  substantially  half  bound,  leather 
corners  and  backs  and  lettered,  thirty  cents. 

That  the  Secretary  of  the  Convention  be  in-  I 
atructed  to  have  the  printing  done  by  George  j 
Knapp  &  Co.,  on  terms  as  above. 

Resolved,  That  the  Secretary  be  instructed  to 
have  printed  five  thousand  copies  of  the  debates 
in  pamphlet  form,  for  the  use  of  the  members  of 
the  Convention. 

HENDRICKS, ) 

WOOLFOLK,  >  Committee  on  Printing. 

HOWELL,        ) 


Mr.  Woolfolk.  I  will  remark  that  it  was  im- 
possible for  us  to  ascertain,  definitely,  what  kind 
or  quality  of  printing  the  Convention  will  require. 
We  were  necessarily  then  compelled  to  agree  sim- 
ply on  some  standard,  and  we  have  adopted  the 
standard  of  the  State  Printer.  We  regard  that 
standard,  when  applied  to  this  Convention,  as 
cheaper  than  the  standard  of  the  Printer,  because 
the  printing  required  to  be  done  by  the  Conven- 
tion will  necessarily  be  considerably  smaller  than 
than  that  required  by  the  State.  We  would  fur- 
ther state,  that  we  have  engrafted  on  those  reso- 
lutions, a  proposition  to  print  5000  copies  simply 
from  the  fact  that  it  is  important  for  the  Conven- 
tion to  determine  now,  if  it  intends  to  determine 
at  all,  whether  it  will  have  any  copies  print- 
ed. The  type  is  up,  and  if  it  is 
taken  down,  of  course  it  will  cost  the  Conven- 
tion much  more  than  it  does  now — perhaps 
double  the  amount.  In  answer  to  the  resolution 
passed  yesterday,  instructing  the  Committee  on 
Printing  to  inquire  into  the  cost  of  printing  the 
proceedings,  I  will  state  this,  that  the  cost  of 
printing  one  thousand  copies,  provided  one  hun- 
dred pages  be  filled,  would  be  $200 ;  of  two  thou- 
sand copies,  $280;  of  three  thousand,  $360;  of 
four  thousand,  $440;  of  five  thousand,  $500. 
Going  upon  the  supposition  that  it  will  fill  one 
hundred  pages,  it  will  only  cost  $500  for  printing 
five  thousand  copies.  I  will  add  that  the  cost  of 
printing,  hitherto,  has  been  more  than  $5  per 
day,  making  in  all  about  $50. 

The  Chair.  The  question  is  on  the  adoption 
of  this  report. 

Mr.  Sheeley.  What  will  be  the  effect  of  that 
adoption.  If  we  adopt  the  report  will  the  debates 
necessarily  be  printed  ? 

The  Chair.    I  understand  it  so. 

Mr.  Sheeley.  Notwithstanding  the  vote  of 
yesterday  ? 

The  Chair.  The  vote  of  yesterday  was  on  the 
adoption  of  the  resolution  which  was  adopted, 
requiring  the  committee  to  ascertain  upon  what 
terms  the  reports  could  be  printed  in  pamphlet 
form. 

Mr.  Sheeley.  This  report  now  authorizes  the 
reports  to  be  printed  in  pamphlet  form  for  so 
much? 

The  Chair.  It  is  a  resolution  recommending 
that  the  Secretary  have  the  printing  done. 

Mr.  Sheeley.  Well,  sir,  I  am  opposed  to  the 
printing  of  the  debates,  and  I  don't  know  ex- 
actly how  to  proceed— whether  to  lay  it  on  the 
table  or  to  make  some  other  motion. 

The  Chair.  The  report  is  subject  to  amend- 
ment. 

Mr.  Sheeley.  Well,  I  trust  this  Convention 
will  abide  by  the  action  of  yesterday,  and  that  so 
much  of  the  report  as  relates  to  the  printing  of 
the  debates  will  not  be  adopted. 


53 


The  Chair.  You  move,  then,  to  strike  out 
that  much  of  the  report  ? 

Mr.  Sheeley.  I  do;  I  believe  it  is  the  second 
resolution  that  I  desire  to  be  struck  out,  and  I 
desire  it  for  the  reason  given  yesterday,  to-wit : 
That  this  Convention  has  no  power  over  the 
Treasury  of  the  State.  "We  have  no  control  over 
it  and  have  no  authority  to  pay  one  cent  for  the 
debates  of  this  Convention.  We  can  preserve 
them  under  the  contract  already  made  with  re- 
]>orters,  and  if  they  are  of  sufficient  importance, 
the  Legislature  will  hereafter,  in  all  probability, 
have  them  published.  As  it  is,  they  are  subject 
to  be  deposited  in  the  office  of  Secretary  of  State. 
Bat  if  we  go  on  now  and  authorize  the  debates  to 
be  published,  according  to  my  understanding  of 
the  law,  it  will  be  done  without  any  right  what- 
ever to  pay  the  publisher  one  cent.  We  have  no 
fund  appropriated  for  that  purpose,  and,  as  I  un- 
derstand our  authority,  although  we  are  the  peo- 
ple of  Missouri,  yet  if  we  use  the  money  of  the 
treasury,  it  must  be  appropriated  according  to 
the  rules  prescribed  by  the  constitutional  law. 
I  trust,  therefore,  that  the  second  resolution  will 
be  stricken  out.  Motion  sustained— ayes  34, 
noes  26. 

The  report  as  amended  was  then  adopted. 

By  Mr.  Irwin  : 

Whereas,  A  resolution  was  introduced  into 
this  Convention  on  yesterday,  declaring  that  the 
inaugural  of  President  Lincoln  is  one  of  peace 
and  not  one  of  war,  which  resolution  was,  on 
motion,  laid  on  the  table,  and 

Whereas,  It  has  been  reported  that  the  action 
of  the  Convention  may  be  viewed  in  the  light  of 
a  test  vote ;  therefore, 

Resolved,  That  the  action  of  the  Convention  in 
laying  said  resolution  on  the  table,  cannot,  with 
the  least  propriety  or  show  of  truth,  be  consid- 
ered as  any  test  whatever  of  the  sense  of  this 
Convention  relative  to  the  sentiments  enunciated 
in  said  resolution. 

Adopted  without  debate  and  with  but  one  dis- 
senting voice. 

The  Chair.  I  understand  that  there  are  seve- 
ral members  who  have  not  yet  sent  up  their  names 
and  post-office  addresses,  &c,  under  the  resolu- 
tion adopted  yesterday.  As  there  seems  to  be 
nothing  else  before  the  Convention  now,  I  would 
request  them  to  come  forward  and  hand  a  state 
ment  to  the   Secretary. 

Several  members  then  came  forward  and  gave 
in  their  Postoffice  addresses. 

By  Mr.  Dunn:  Resolved,  That  the  Committee 
on  Printing  shall  contract  for  printing  five  thou- 
sand copies  of  the  proceedings  and  debates  of  this 
ConA-ention,  in  pamphlet  form,  and  one  thousand 
copies  to  be  bound  as  soon  as  the  General  Assem- 
bly shall  make  an  appropriation  to  pay  for  the 
same. 


Mr.  Dunn.  It  might  be  inferred  by  those  who 
misunderstood  the  motives  that  influenced  the  ac- 
tion of  the  Convention  and  members  on  this  floor, 
on  the  subject  of  printing  the  proceedings  and 
debates  of  this  Convention — it  might  be  erroneous- 
ly inferred  that  this  Convention  was  indisposed  to 
let  the  people  of  the  State  and  the  United  States 
know  what  we  were  doing,  and  the  reasons  for 
our  action.  But  for  the  enterprise  of  the  city  pa- 
pers, the  country  would  know  nothing  at  all, 
even,  of  our  debates,  and  but  little  of  our  pro- 
ceedings. We  are  indebted  to  the  city  papers  for 
the  means  of  communicating  to  the  people  of  the 
State  the  proceedings  of  this  Convention,  and  to 
the  people  of  our  sister  States ;  and  I  do  think  it 
is  due  to  ourselves,  and  due  to  those  who  have 
sent  us  here,  that  we  should  send  out  our  pro- 
ceedings to  the  people  of  this  State,  and  of  our 
sister  States,  in  an  authentic  form.  At  all  events, 
we  should,  at  least,  show  that  we  are  willing  to 
do  so ;  and  the  only  obstacle  in  the  way  of  doing 
so  is  the  apprehension  existing  on  the  part  of 
some  of  the  members  of  this  Convention  that  we 
have  not  the  power  to  make  an  appropriation 
from  the  Treasury,  for  the  purpose  of  defraying 
expenses.  Let  us  take  the  position  indicated  by 
this  resolution,  that  we  are  ready  and  desirous 
that  our  proceedings  and  debates  shall  be  pub- 
lished, and  should  go  before  our  people  and  the 
people  of  our  sister  States,  and  then  it 
remains  with  the  General  Assembly  to 
determine  whether  they  will  make  any  appro- 
priation necessary  to  defray  the  expenses.  I 
agree  with  my  friend  from  Jackson  that  this  Con- 
vention will  not  have  the  power  to  appropriate 
money  out  of  the  Treasury,  and  I  acknowledge 
the  force  of  his  objection.  But  I  doubt  not  my 
friend  from  Jackson  will  agree  with  me  that  it 
will  be  well  to  sustain  this  resolution  which  I  have 
offered,  and  thereby  place  the  responsibility  of 
the  publication  where  it  properly  belongs,  viz. : 
the  General  Assembly.  Surely,  they  will  not 
wait  a  solitary  moment  in  making  the  necessary 
appropriation.  Trusting,  therefore,  that  they 
will  make  this  appropriation,  I  hope  the  resolu- 
tion which  I  have  offered  will  be  unanimously 
adopted  by  the  Convention.  It  steers  clear  of  all 
objections  which  have  been  urged  against  prece- 
ding resolutions,  and  places  the  Convention  where 
it  ought  to  be  placed — in  the  attitude  of  being 
perfectly  willing  to  submit  our  debates  to  the 
scrutiny  of  the  people  of  our  State  and  of  our 
sister  States.  It  is  due  to  us  that  this  should  be 
done,  and  I  offer  this  resolution  in  the  hope  that 
it  will  receive  the  unanimous  concurrence  of  the 
Convention. 

Mr.  Orr.  I  desire  to  say  that  I  believe  the 
debates  ought  to  be  published.  I  have,  however, 
voted  against  the  adoption  of  the  report  of  the 
Committee  for  a  different  reason  than  that  staled 
by  the  gentleman  from  Jackson.    I  understand 


54 


the  law  calling  this  Convention,  makes  a  provi- 
sion that  all  members  and  necessary  officers 
shall  have  the  same  pay  as  those  of  the  Legisla- 
ture. I  understand  that  a  Public  Printer  is  an 
officer  of  the  Legislature,  and  therefore,  I  under- 
stand that  by  the  law  we  have  the  power  already 
vested  in  us  to  pay  for  the  printing.  I  voted 
against  the  resolution  because  I  thought  that  the 
law  of  Missouri  paid  the  Public  Printer  about  one 
hundred  per  cent,  more  than  he  ought  to  have, 
and  that  the  printing  could  be  had  on  bet- 
ter terms  than  is  now  the  case  in  accord- 
ance with  the  laws  of  Missouri.  So  far  as  ma- 
king any  provision  by  the  Legislature,  or 
their  appropriating  money  for  this  Convention 
is  concerned,  I  presume  we  can  have  our 
printing  done  without  asking  the  Legislature 
anything  about  it.  I  want  it  done  on  an  econo- 
mical principle.  I  see  from  the  statistics  in  the 
newspapers,  (and  I  suppose  they  are  correct,)  that 
the  public  printing  costs  the  State  of  Missouri 
$90,000  per  year,  while  in  New  York  it  is  only 
$30,000.  I  am,  therefore,  satisfied  that  we  are 
paying  too  much  for  our  public  printing,  and  I 
want  the  matter  so  arranged  as  to  have  the  print- 
ing done  at  the  lowest  rate  that  will  pay  a  man  to 
do  it. 

Mr.  Dunn  :  I  have  only  one  additional  word  of 
explanation.  The  resolution  contemplates  no 
such  thing  as  having  this  printing  done  by  the 
Public  Printer,  but  it  authorizes  the  committee  to 
contract  for  that  printing.  Of  course,  in  con- 
tracting, for  it  they  will  be  free  to  make  a  contract 
with  any  publishing  establishment  in  the  State, 
and  are  not  confined  to  the  Public  Printer.  One 
word  of  explanation  in  regard  to  myself.  I 
want  no  member  of  this  Convention  to  suppose 
that  I  am  influenced  to  offer  this  resolu- 
tion in  any  expectation  that  I  shall  partici- 
pate largely  in  the  debates.  Thus  far  I 
have  said  but  little,  and  I  will  remark  that 
I  expect  to  say  but  little  during  the  remainder 
of  the  session.  My  position  is,  in  one  particu- 
lar, and  has  been  for  the  last  twelve  years  or 
more,  similar  to  the  position  occupied  by  some 
of  the  fair  ladies  who  have,  during  the  sessions 
of  our  Convention,  honored  us  with  their  pres- 
ence. I  refer  to  the  belles  of  the  city,  and  I  hope 
they  will  pardon,  and  the  Convention  will  pardon 
me  for  saying  that  in  one  particular  I  will  occupy 
their  position,  and  have  occupied  it  for  the  last 
twelve  years.  The  announcement  of  this  fact 
may  seem  a  little  strange,  but  when  I  state  the 
point  of  resemblance  between  us — if  I  m  ay  so 
speak — it  will  no  longer  seem  strange.  For  the 
past  twelve  years,  as  my  friends  know,  I 
have  presided  as  Judge  of  the  Fifth  Judicial 
Circuit,  and  the  particular  in  which  I  re- 
semble the  belles  is  that  I  have  made  but 
few  speeches  myself.  Perhaps  I  should  say 
in    justice    to    them,    that  I    have    made    no 


speeches,  for  I  presume  they  make  no  speeches 
— but  during  that  time  I  have  had  the  honor  of 
listening  to  a  great  many  speeches,  so  that,  in 
these  two  particulars,  I  occupy  the  same  position 
as  they — making  no  speeches  myself,  but  having 
a  great  many  speeches  made  to  me.  [Laughter.] 
I  hope,  with  this  explanation,  that  the  ladies  will 
honor  us  with  their  presence,  and  take  no  excep- 
tion to  my  claim  to  occupy  their  position  in  these 
particulars.  In  saying  this,  however,  I  desire  to 
say  that,  having  been  out  of  the  habit  of  speak- 
ing for  the  last  twelve  years,  I  have  sometimes 
got  in  the  way  of  speaking  by  proxy,  and  I 
expect,  on  this  occasion,  that  some  of  my  neigh- 
bors and  friends,  and  colleagues,  who  are 
more  accustomed  to  speaking  than  myself,  will 
speak  my  sentiments,  and  that  although  I  may 
not  indulge  to  any  extent  in  the  debates  in 
person,  I  hope  to  do  so  more  effectively  by  proxy. 
With  this  explanation,  I  hope  the  resolution  will 
pass  unanimously. 

Mr.  Foster.  I  am  very  proud  that  my  friend 
from  Ray  is  disposed  to  be  in  favor  of  printing 
the  debates ;  but  if  he  will  allow  me  to  state  as 
much,  he  need  not  be  at  all  uneasy  as  to  wheth- 
er his  resolution  is  adopted  or  not,  as  I  feel  very 
sure  that  the  Legislature  will  not  make  the  ap- 
propriation. I  even  apprehend,  from  the  dispo- 
sition manifested  by  the  Legislature,  that  they  will 
not  make  an  appropriation  to  remunerate  mem- 
bers of  this  Convention  for  their  services  here.  In 
view  of  this  fact,  and  in  view  of  the  further  fact  that 
so  far  as  I  understand  the  law,  we  have  no  power, 
as  we  can  see,  to  take  money  out  of  the  public 
treasury  at  all,  I  do  not,  therefore,  see  that  any 
good  can  come  from  the  resolution.  So  far  as  I 
am  concerned,  I  should  like  very  much  to  see  the 
acts  of  this  Convention  go  before  the  public,  and 
if  we  can  manage  it  in  any  way  to  get  them  before 
the  public,  I  think  it  right  to  do  so.  But  if  we 
depend  upon  the  Legislature  of  Missouri  for 
bringing  the  facts  of  this  Convention  before  the 
public  mind,  my  word  for  it,  we  shall  not  get  our 
action  before  the  public  at  all.  Although  the 
Legislature  of  Missouri  called  this  body  into  ex- 
istence, yet,  sir,  its  complexion  so  very  materially 
differs  from  the  complexion  of  the  Legislative 
body,  that  if  they  had  the  power,  in  my  judg- 
ment, they  would  crush  us  out  of  existence  to- 
day, and  hence,  so  far  as  my  acts  are  concerned, 
it  shall  be  independent  of  that  body,  regardless 
of  consequences. 

Mr.  Hudgins.  I  was  sorry  to  hear  one  single 
voice  against  the  resolution  of  the  gentleman 
from  Ray.  I  do  not  think,  sir,  that  the  Legisla- 
ture intends  to  pursue  the  course  that  the  gentle- 
man (Mr.  Foster)  on  my  left  here  suggests.  I 
am  satisfied  they  will  make  an  appropriation, 
and  in  justice  to  them  I  will  state  to-day  that  I 
have  no  doubt  of  it,  sir.  This  Convention  is  an 
important  one,  and  the  eye  of  the  people  of  the 


55 


State  is  looking  to  it.  It  ought  to  do  nothing 
which  they  are  not  willing  to  go  before  the  peo- 
ple. Whether  the  debates  of  this  Convention  will 
reflect  the  will  of  the  Legislature  of  the  State  of 
Missouri  or  not,  I  know  not,  and  I  am  not  con- 
cerned in  regard  to  that.  I  am  satisfied  they  will 
do  justice  to  us  in  regard  to  that  matter,  and  that 
this  resolution  ought  to  pass,  and  that  the  de- 
bates of  this  Convention  should  go  before  the 
people.  I  expect  to  do  nothing  myself,  so  far  as 
voting  and  speaking  is  concerned,  that  I  shall 
have  the  least  disposition  to  withhold  from  any 
citizen  of  Missouri  or  the  Union.  I  am  in  favor, 
sir,  of  the  resolution. 

Mr.  Birch.  As  to  what  has  been  said  dis- 
trustive  of  the  legislative  action,  it  is  but  proper 
to  remark  that  I  consider  it  at  least  gratuitous,  if 
not  unj  ust.  We  have  in  fact  no  reason  to  doubt 
but  that  the  Legislature  which  called  us  together 
will  readily  recognize  all  the  usual  expenses  of 
such  bodies;  and  as  about  the  best  political 
reading  I  ever  met  with  was  in  the  published  de- 
bates of  the  Virginia  Convention,  (when  I  was  a 
young  man,)  lam  unwilling  to  withhold  from 
others,  of  the  present  day.  whatever  may,  in  like 
manner,  tend  either  to  their  edification  or  enable 
them  the  better  to  hold  us  to  a  just  and  intelligent 
responsibility  for  our  acts  and  utterances  here. 
I  shall,  therefore,  vote  for  the  resolution  of  my 
colleague. 

Mr.  Sheelet.  I  should  like  to  make  an  in- 
quiry. Was  there  not  an  order  passed  here  some 
days  ago,  that  the  seats  not  occupied  by  the 
members  of  the  Convention  should  be  appropria- 
ted to  the  ladies  ?  I  see  a  number  of  ladies  that 
cannot  be  seated,  as  the  seats  are  occupied  by 
gentlemen.  If  it  is  in  order,  I  ask  that  it  be  so 
arranged  that  the  ladies  can  get  seats. 

The  Chair.  Gentlemen  who  are  not  members 
of  the  Convention,  and  who  are  occupying  the 
seats  of  the  Convention,  will  make  place  for  the 
ladies.  They  are  appropriated  exclusively  for  the 
ladies. 

Mr.  Wilson.  Something  has  been  said,  sir,  in 
relation  to  an  appropriation  to  pay  the  expenses 
of  this  Convention.  Now,  according  to  my  un- 
derstanding, the  Legislature  supposed  at  the  time, 
that  they  had  provided  fully  for  the  necessary  ex- 
penses of  an  independent  body,  and  had  placed  it 
in  the  power  of  the  Convention  to  defray  all  ne- 
cessary expenses,  and  I  feel  satisfied  that,  if  there 
has  been  any  omission  in  this  particular,  it  will 
be  readily  supplied.  I  hope  that  provision  will  be 
made,  in  some  form  or  other,  for  the  publication 
of  th3  proceedings  and  debates  of  this  body.  I 
think  that  it  is  due  to  the  people  of  the  State  that 
our  proceedings,  so  interesting  to  a  large  propor- 
tion, and  perhaps  to  all  the  people  of  this  State, 
should  be  sent  broadcast  all  over  the  land.  I. 
have  no  doubt  but  that,  if  legislative  action  shall 


be  necessary,  it  will  be  promptly  rendered  at  an^ 
time. 

Mr.  Doniphan.  I  desire  that  this  subject  be 
passed  over  for  a  moment,  in  order  to  permit  the 
Chairman  of  the  Committee  on  Federal  Relations 
to  make  his  report,  so  that  the  report  may  be 
printed  and  laid  on  the  table.  If,  however,  this 
subject  will  elicit  no  further  discussion,  it  may  be 
disposed  of  at  once  and  the  report  read  after- 
wards. 

The  Chair.  The  question  will  be  on  the  adop- 
tion of  the  resolution.  The  resolution  was  then 
adopted. 

Mr.  Gamble,  from  the  Committee  on  Federal 
Relations,  then  made  the  following 

REPORT. 

The  Committee  on  Federal  Relations  beg  leave 
to  report.  On  looking  to  the  present  condition  of 
our  late  prosperous,  happy  and  united  country, 
we  see  seven  of  our  sister  States  by  the  action 
of  their  Conventions  declaring  themselves  sepa- 
rated from  the  United  States,  and  organizing  for 
themselves  a  distinct  national  government;  while 
others  are  in  a  disturbed  condition,  looking  anx- 
iously to  the  future,  and  uncertain  about  all  that 
is  to  come. 

If,  in  our  astonishment  at  the  sudden  disrup- 
tion of  our  nation,  we  attempt  to  trace  the  causes 
that  have  produced  the  disastrous  result,  we  find 
that  the  origin  of  the  difficulty  is  rather  in  the 
alienated  feelings  existing  between  the  Northern 
and  Southern  sections  of  the  country,  than  in  the 
actual  injury  suffered  by  either;  rather  in  the  an- 
ticipation of  future  evils,  than  in  the  pressure  of 
any  now  actually  endured. 

It  is  true  that  the  people  of  the  Southern  States 
have  a  right  to  complain  of  the  incessant  abuse 
poured  upon  their  institutions  by  the  press,  the 
pulpit,  and  many  of  the  people  of  the  North.  It 
is  true  that  they  have  a  right  to  complain  of  le- 
gislative enactments  designed  to  interfere  with 
the  assertion  of  their  constitutional  rights.  It  is 
true  that  the  hostile  feelings  to  Southern  institu- 
tions entertained  by  many  at  the  North  have 
manifested  themselves  in  mob  violence  interfer- 
ing with  the  execution  of  laws  made  to  secure  the 
rights  of  Southern  citizens.  It  is  true  that  in 
one  instance  this  fanatical  feeling  has  displayed 
itself  in  the  actual  invasion  of  a  Southern  State 
by  a  few  madmen,  who  totally  misunderstood  the 
institution  they  came  to  subvert.  It  is  true  that 
a  sectional  political  party  has  been  organized  at 
the  North,  based  upon  the  idea  that  the  institu- 
tion of  Southern  slavery  is  not  to  be  allowed  to 
extend  itself  into  the  Territories  of  the  United 
States,  and  that  this  party  has  for  the  present 
possessed  itself  of  the  power  of  the  Government. 

While  it  is  thus  true  that  the  people  of  the 
South  have  well-grounded  complaints  against 
many  of  their  fellow-citizens  of  the  North,  it  is 
equally  true  that  heretofore  there  has  been  no 


56 


complaint  against  the  action  of  the  Federal  Gov- 
ernment in  any  of  its  departments,  as  designed 
to  violate  the  rights  of  the  Southern  States. 

By  some  incomprehensible  delusion,  many 
Northern  people  have  come  to  believe  that  in 
some  manner  they  are  chargeable  with  complic- 
ity in  what  they  are  pleased  to  consider  the  sin  of 
slavery,  and  for  which,  as  existing  in  the  South- 
ern States,  they  are  just  as  much  responsible  as 
they  are  for  the  same  relation  existing  in  the 
heart  of  Africa.  This  morbid  sensitiveness  has 
been  ministered  to  by  religious  and  political  ag- 
itators for  the  purpose  of  increasing  their  own 
importance  and  advancing  their  own  interests, 
and  the  natural  consequences  have  followed :  out- 
bursts of  mob  vioknce  and  of  political  action 
against  the  owners  of  slaves. 

While  the  prejudice  thus  existing  in  the 
Northern  mind  is  latent,  not  exhibiting  itself  in 
action,  we  may  lament  its  existence  and  the 
estrangement  it  produces ;  but  we  trust  in  such 
case,  as  in  all  others  of  similar  character,  that  a 
better  knowledge  of  the  subject  will  remove  the 
prejudice.  Already  the  awakened  attention  of 
the  Northern  people  gives  promise  that  the  mis- 
erable agitators  will  be  stript  of  their  power  over 
the  public  mind,  and  that  reason  and  a  correct 
sense  of  duty  and  of  justice  will  ultimately  pre- 
vail and  dispose  our  Northern  fellow-citizens  to 
fulfill  all  the  duties  they  owe  to  us  as  citizens  of 
the  same  country,  living  under  the  same  Consti- 
tution, inheritors  of  the  same  blood,  and  sharers 
in  the  same  destiny. 

So  far  as  the  prejudice  complained  of  has  mani- 
fested itself  in  legislative  action,  the  complaint 
is  not  merely  that  such  action  violates  the  Con- 
stitution of  the  United  States,  because  our  own 
State  has  passed  acts  which  have  been  declared 
by  our  own  judicial  tribunals  and  by  the  Supreme 
Court  of  the  United  States  to  be  violations  of  the 
Constitution  of  the  United  States;  and  those 
familiar  with  the  judicial  history  of  the  country 
know  that  many,  if  not  all  the  States  of  the 
Union,  have  at  times  passed  laws  which  have 
been  held  to  be  inconsistent  with  that  Constitu- 
tion. Some  of  these  acts  related  to  land  titles, 
some  to  contracts,  some  affected  commerce  with 
foreign  nations  and  between  the  States ;  but  all 
such  laws  as  they  were,  not  produced  by  any 
sectional  feeling,  were  left  to  be  decided  upon  by 
the  tribunals  of  the  country  with  an  ultimate  ap- 
peal to  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States, 
the  final  arbiter  on  all  cases  arising  under  the 
Constitution.  Such  cases  produced  no  excite- 
ment in  the  public  mind,  and  all  confidence  was 
reposed  in  that  elevated  tribunal  that  it  would 
vindicate  the  supremacy  of  the  Constitution. 

There  is  no  reason  to  apprehend  that  that  tri- 
bunal would  shrink  from  declaring  the  class  of 
enactments  of  which  we  are  now  treating,  which 
are  aimed  against  the  rights  of  slaveholders,  re- 


pugnant to  the  Constitution  and  therefore  void. 
There  is,  therefore,  an  obvious  remedy  for  the 
grievance  arising  out  of  this  unconstitutional  le- 
gislation, and  that,  too,  a  remedy  provided  by  the 
Constitution  itself  for  an  evil  foreseen  when  it  was 
made.  Moreover,  there  are  indications  of  a  re- 
turning sense  of  justice  in  the  Northern  States, 
from  which  we  may  hope  for  the  voluntary  repeal 
of  these  obnoxious  enactments. 

Upon  the  subject  of  the  violent  interference  by 
mobs  with  the  execution  of  the  fugitive  slave 
law,  and  the  forcible  abduction  of  slaves  when 
with  their  owners  in  the  Northern  States,  it  is 
proper  to  observe  that  there  reigns  throughout 
this  land  a  spirit  of  insubordination  to  law  that 
is  probably  unequalled  in  any  other  civilized 
country  on  the  globe.  While  this  is  true,  it  is  a 
fact  of  which  we  can  still  be  proud  that  the  judi- 
cial tribunals  of  the  Federal  Government  have 
not  failed  in  any  case  brought  before  them  to 
maintain  the  rights  of  Southern  citizens  and  to 
punish  the  violators  of  those  rights. 

When  Southern  soil  is  invaded  by  Northern 
madmen  for  the  purpose  of  overthrowing  the  in- 
stitution of  slavery,  they  meet  their  death  by  the 
law,  and  that  is  the  end  of  their  scheme. 

The  fact  that  a  sectional  party  avowing  opposi- 
tion to  the  admission  of  slavery  into  the  Territo- 
ries of  the  United  States  has  been  organized,  and 
has  for  the  present  obtained  possession  of  the 
Government,  is  to  be  deeply  regretted,  because  it 
opens  before  us  all  the  dangers  against  which  the 
Father  of  his  Countrv  so  earnestly  warned  us. 

But  the  history  of  our  country  for  a  very  few 
years  back,  instructs  us  in  the  truth  that  political 
parties,  even  when  coming  into  power  with  over- 
whelming popularity,  soon  melt  away  under  the 
influence  of  internal  jealousies,  and  disappoint- 
ments, and  the  attacks  of  vigilant  opponents. 

When  a  party  comes  into  power  upon  the  basis 
of  a  single  question  of  policy,  there  is  soon 
found  the  truth,  that  government  cannot  be 
administered  upon  a  single  idea,  and  its  suppor- 
ters become  divided  upon  the  questions  which 
affect  their  own  interests. 

There  is  every  reason  to  hope  that  the  party 
which  has  just  assumed  the  reins  of  government 
will  feel  that  the  vast  interests  intrusted  to 
their  management,  are  of  much  greater  im- 
portance than  the  question,  whether  slaves 
shall  or  shall  not  be  admitted  into  all  the  Territo- 
ry that  now  belongs  to  the  United  States.  There 
is  reason  to  hope  that  when  the  masses  of  that 
party  understand  that  the  admission  of  slaves 
into  a  Territory  does  not  increase  the  number  of 
slaves  in  being,  they  will  be  prepared  to  make  any 
arrangement  with  their  Southern  brethren  that 
shall  assure  to  them  equal  rights  in  the  common 
Territories. 

Under  the  state  of  facts  now  existing,  it  would 
seem  almost  needless  to  speak  of  the  propriety  of 


57 


the  State  of  Missouri  engaging  in  a  revolution 
against  the  Federal  Government.  Secession  i  s 
the  word  commonly  employed  when  the  revolu- 
tion now  in  progress  is  mentioned;  but  as  the 
Constitution  of  the  United  States  recognizes  no 
power  in  any  State  to  destroy  the  government, 
the  word  "secession,"  when  used  in  this  paper,  is 
to  be  understood  as  equivalent  to  revolution. 

To  involve  Missouri  in  revolution,  under 
present  circumstances,  is  certainly  not  demanded 
by  the  magnitude  of  the  grievances  of  which  we 
complain,  nor  by  the  certainty  that  they  cannot 
be  otherwise  and  more  peacefully  remedied,  nor 
by  the  hope  that  they  would  be  remedied  or  even 
diminished  by  such  revolution. 

The  position  of  Missouri  in  relation  to  the  ad- 
jacent States  which  would  continue  in  the  Union, 
would  necessarily  expose  her,  if  she  became  a 
member  of  a  new  confederacy,  to  utter  destruction 
whenever  any  rupture  might  take  place  between 
the  different  republics.  In  a  military  aspect,  se- 
cession and  a  connection  with  a  Southern  Con- 
federacy is  annihilation  for  our  State. 

Many  of  our  largest  interests  would  perish  un- 
der a  system  of  free  trade. 

Emigration  to  the  State  must  cease.  No  South- 
ern man  owning  slaves  would  come  to  the  fron- 
tier State ;  no  Northern  man  would  come  to  this 
foreign  country  avowedly  hostile  to  his  native 
land. 

Our  slave  interest  would  be  destroyed,  because 
we  would  have  no  better  right  to  recapture  a 
slave  found  in  a  free  State  than  we  now  have  in 
Canada.  The  owners  of  slaves  must  either  re- 
move with  them  to  the  South,  or  sell  them,  and 
so  we  would  in  a  few  years  exhibit  the  spectacle 
of  a  State  breaking  up  its  most  advantageous  and 
important  relations  to  the  old  Union,  in  order  to 
enter  into  a  slaveholding  confederacy,  and  having 
itself  no  slaves. 

The  thought  of  revolution  by  Missouri,  under 
present  circumstances,  is  not,  we  believe,  serious- 
ly entertained  by  any  member  of  this  Convention. 

But  what  is  now  the  true  position  for  Missouri 
to  assume?  Evidently  that  of  a  State  whose  in- 
terests are  bound  up  in  the  maintenance  of  the 
Union,  and  whose  kind  feelings  and  strong  sym- 
pathies are  with  the  people  of  the  Southern 
States,  with  whom  we  are  connected  by  ties  of 
friendship  and  of  blood.  We  want  the  peace  and 
harmony  of  the  country  restored,  and  we  want 
them  with  us.  To  go  with  them  as  they  are  now, 
to  leave  the  government  our  fathers  builded,  to 
blot  out  the  star  of  Missouri  from  the  constella- 
tion of  the  Union,  is  to  ruin  ourselves  without 
doing  them  any  good.  We  cannot  now  follow 
them;  we  cannot  now  give  up  the  Union;  yet  Ave 
will  do  all  in  our  power  to  induce  them  to  take 
their  places  with  us  in  the  family  from  which 
they  have  attempted  to  separate  themselves. 
For  this  purpose  we  will  not  only  recommend  a 


compromise  with  which  they  ought  to  be  satisfied, 
but  we  will  unite  in  the  endeavor  to  procure  an 
assemblage  of  the  whole  family  of  States  in  order 
that  in  a  General  Convention  such  amendments 
to  the  Constitution  may  be  agreed  upon  as  shall 
permanently  restore  harmony  to  the  whole  na- 
tion. 

While  attempts  are  being  made  to  heal  the  pre- 
sent divisions,  it  is  a  matter  of  the  highest  im- 
portance that  there  should  occur  no  military  con- 
flict between  the  Federal  Government  and  the 
government  of  any  of  the  seceded  States.  Such 
conflict  will  certainly  produce  a  high  state  of  ex- 
asperation and  very  probably  render  abortive  all 
attempts  to  adjust  the  matters  of  difference. 

While  it  is  admitted  that  every  government 
must  possess  the  power  to  execute  its  own  laws, 
and  that  the  Government  of  the  United  States  is 
no  exception  to  this  necessary  and  universal  rule, 
still,  in  a  case  such  as  that  with  which  we  are  now 
dealing  it  is  all  important  that  those  in  authority 
should  remember  that  such  power  is  not  given  to 
be  exercised  for  the  destruction  of  the  govern- 
ment, under  the  guise  of  maintaining  its  authority. 
The  question  of  exercising  such  power  is  to  be 
determined  with  a  view  to  all  existing  circum- 
stances, and  while  the  power  itself  cannot  be 
abandoned  the  greatest  patience  and  forbearance 
may  often  be  required  in  order  to  prevent  evils  in 
the  highest  degree  dangerous  to  the  peace  of  the 
nation. 

Placed  as  Missouri  is  in  the  very  centre  of  the 
confederacy,  united  to  all  its  parts  and  interested 
in  the  prosperity  of  each  part,  she  would  speak 
to  the  Government  of  the  United  States  and  to 
the  Governments  of  the  seceding  States,  not  in 
the  language  of  menace  but  of  kindness,  not 
threatening  but  entreating;  and  with  this  feeling 
she  would  ask  all  concerned  in  the  governments 
to  avoid  all  military  collisions  which  would  with- 
out doubt  produce  uncontrollable  excitement,  and 
very  probably  ruinous  civil  war.  Civil  Avar 
among  the  American  people,  the  citizens  of  the 
freest  nation  of  the  Avorld,  blest  of  God,  envied  of 
man,  Avould  be  a  spectacle  at  Avhich  humanity 
Avould  shudder,  over  Avhich  freedom  Avould  Aveep, 
and  from  Avhich  Christianity  affrighted  would  flee 
away. 

If  it  be  the  glorious  mission  of  Missouri  to  aid 
in  arresting  the  progress  of  revolution  and  in 
restoring  peace  and  prosperity  to  the  country;  if 
she  shall  be  instrumental  in  binding  together 
again  the  hearts  of  the  American  people,  and 
thus  restoring  the  union  of  affection  as  Avell  as 
the  union  of  political  and  individual  interest,  she 
Avill  but  occupy  the  position  for  which  nature 
designed  her  by  giA'ing  her  a  central  position, 
and  endoAving  her  AA'ith  all  the  elements  of  Avealth 
and  poAver.  And  Avhy  should  she  not?— she  Avas 
brought  forth  in  a  storm  and  cradled  in  a  com- 


58 


promise.  She  can  resist  the  one  and  recommend 
the  other. 

In  order  to  express  her  opinions  and  wishes, 
the  following  resolutions  are  submitted : 

Resolved,  That  at  present  there  is  no  adequate 
cause  to  impel  Missouri  to  dissolve  her  connec- 
tion with  the  Federal  Union,  but  on  the  contrary 
she  will  labor  for  such  an  adjustment  of  existing 
troubles  as  will  secure  the  peace  as  well  as  the 
rights  and  equality  of  all  the  States. 

Resolved,  That  the  people  of  this  State  are 
devotedly  attached  to  the  institutions  of  our  coun- 
try and,  earnestly  desire  that  by  a  fair  and  amica- 
ble adjustment  all  the  causes  of  disagreement 
that  at  present  unfortunately  distract  us  as  a  peo- 
ple may  be  removed,  to  the  end  that  our  Union 
may  be  preserved  and  perpetuated,  and  peace  and 
harmony  be  restored  between  the  North  and  the 
South. 

Resolved,  That  the  people  of  this  State  deem 
the  amendments  to  the  Constitution  of  the  Uni- 
ted States,  proposed  by  the  Hon.  John  J.  Crit- 
tenden, of  Kentucky,  with  the  extension  of  the 
same  to  the  Territory  hereafter  to  be  acquired  by 
treaty  or  otherwise,  a  basis  of  adjustment  which 
will  successfully  remove  the  causes  of  difference 
forever  from  the  arena  of  national  politics. 

Resolved,  That  the  people  of  Missouri  believe 
the  peace  and  quiet  of  the  country  will  be  pro- 
moted by  a  Convention  to  propose  amendments 
to  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States,  and  this 
Convention  therefore  urges  the  Legislature  of  this 
State  to  take  the  proper  steps  for  calling  such  a 
Convention  in  pursuance  of  the  fifth  article  of  the 
Constitution,  and  for  providing  by  law  for  an 
election  of  one  delegate  to  such  Convention  from 
each  electoral  district  in  this  State. 

Resolved,  That,  in  the  opinion  of  this  Con- 
vention, the  employment  of  military  force  by  the 
Federal  Government  to  coerce  the  submission  of 
the  seceding  States,  or  the  employment  of  milita- 
ry force  by  the  seceding  States  to  assail  the 
Government  of  the  United  States,  will  inevitably 
plunge  this  country  into  civil  war,  and  thereby 
entirely  extinguish  all  hope  of  an  amicable  settle- 
ment of  the  fearful  issues  now  pending  before  the 
country;  we  therefore  earnestly  entreat  as  well 
the  Federal  Government  as  the  seceding  States  to 
withhold  and  stay  the  arm  of  military  power,  and 
on  no  pretence  whatever  bring  upon  the  nation 
the  horrors  of  civil  war. 

Resolved,  That  when  this  Convention  adjourns 
its  session  in  the  city  of  St.  Louis,  it  will  adjourn 
to  meet  in  the  Hall  of  the  House  of  Representa- 
tives at  Jefferson  City,  on  the  third  Monday  of 
December,  1861. 

Resolved,  That  a  Committee  of be  elected 

by  this  Convention,  a  majority  of  which  shall 
have  power  to  call  this  Convention  together  at 
such  time  prior  to  the  third  Monday  of  Decem- 
ber, and  at  such  place  as  they  may  think  the  pub- 


lic exigencies  require,  and  the  survivors  or  the 
survivor  of  said  Committee  shall  have  power  to 
fill  any  vacancies  that  may  happen  in  said  Com- 
mittee by  death,  resignation,  or  otherwise,  dur- 
ing the  recess  of  this  Convention. 

GAMBLE,  Chairman. 

Mr.  Doniphan.  That  report  is  a  long  one,  and 
is,  perhaps,  the  most  important  business  of  the 
Convention.  I  therefore,  move  that  it  be  laid  on 
the  table  with  an  order  to  be  printed,  and  made 
the  especial  order  for  Monday,  at  10  1-2  o'clock. 
As  one  of  the  members  of  that  Committee,  I  will 
say  that  I  have  differed,  in  some  respects,  from 
the  Committee  in  the  wording,  agreements  and 
propositions  combined  in  the  report,  but  not  suf- 
ficiently so  to  induce  me  to  offer  any  opposition. 
I  understand,  however,  that  some  of  the  members 
of  that  Committee  intended  presenting  a  minor- 
ity report,  and  as  Judge  Gamble  has  failed  to 
state  it,  at  their  request  I  consider  it  proper  to 
make  the  statement. 

Mr.  Gamble.  I  intended  to  make  the  statement 
as  soon  as  I  should  get  the  floor. 

Mr.  Doniphan.  My  object  at  present  is  simply 
to  ask  that  the  resolution  be  laid  on  the  table  and 
printed,  and  made  the  special  order  for  10  1-2 
o'clock,  on  Monday. 

Mr.  Redd.  Pending  that  motion  I  desire  to 
say,  as  a  member  of  that  Committee,  that  whilst 
the  temper  and  spirit  of  that  report  meets  my 
hearty  approval,  while  in  its  arguments  and  con- 
clusions, in  the  main,  I  concur,  I  must  say  that 
the  plan  of  adjustment  laid  down,  in  my  judg- 
ment, will  not  attain  the  end  sought— namely,  the 
preservation  of  the  Union ;  and  with  all  due  defer- 
ence to  the  superior  aid,  with  all  due  deference  to 
the  vastly  superior  abilities  of  the  majority  of  that 
Committee,  I  must  say  that  I  deem  it  my  duty— a 
duty  I  owe  to  my  country,  a  duty  I  owe  to  myself 
— to  ask  to  present  a  minority  report,  setting  forth 
the  reasons  that  have  led  my  mind  to  the  con- 
clusion that  the  plan  of  adjustment  pre- 
sented in  that  report  will  fail  to  attain  the 
end  sought,  and  to  present  the  only  plan  that  will, 
in  my  judgment,  attain  that  end.  There  were 
others  of  the  committee  who  differed  with  the 
majority  in  regard  to  that  plan.  Gentlemen  of 
vastly  superior  ability  to  myself— gentlemen  who 
are  familiar  with  the  proceedings  of  deliberative 
bodies,  (as  I  am  not  and  have  never  been,)  and 
we  relied  upon  these  gentlemen,  and  I  presumed 
that  some  one  of  them  would  prepare  a  minority 
report,  presenting  the  plan  that  met  our  approval. 
It  had  not  been  done  this  morning,  however,  and 
so  I  sketched  out  a  hasty  report,  and  completed 
it  in  the  committee  room.  It  is  not  in  a  condi- 
tion now  that  I  would  desire  to  present  it  to  this 
Convention.  If  there  be  no  parliamentary  rule 
that  will  prohibit  it,  I  desire  to  present  that  mi- 
nority report  on  Monday  next.  If  there  be  such 
a  parliamentary  rule,  I  will  present  the  report  in 


59 


the  shape  in  which  it  now  is,  and  present  it  now. 

The  Chair.  The  gentleman  will  have  leave  to 
bring  in  his  minority  report  on  Monday  next,  if 
no  objection  is  made. 

Voices.    Leave. 

The  Chair.    Leave  is  granted. 

Mr.  Redd.  It  will  be  entered  then,  Mr.  Presi- 
dent, npon  the  journal,  if  you  please. 

Mr.  Sheeley.  I  would  ask  whether  it  would 
be  in  order  for  the  gentleman,  when  he  has  pre- 
pared his  report,  to  hand  it  to  the  printer,  so  that 
we  may  have  both  reports  printed. 

The  Chair.  I  see  no  reason  why  it  should 
not  be  done. 

Mr.  Sheeley.  Then,  if  in  order,  I  will  make 
that  moiion. 

Mr.  Redd.  If  I  get  the  report  prepared  in 
time,  I  will  furnish  it  to  the  printer. 

Mr.  Breckinridge.  I  understand  there  is  a 
"proposition  by  the  gentleman  from  Marion,  to 
have  the  report  printed  prior  to  its  submission  to 
the  Convention.    Is  that  so? 

The  Chair.  That  is  the  agreement  on  the 
part  of  the  Convention.  I  put  the  question,  and 
there  was  no  objection,  and  it  was  so  ordered. 

The  question  will  be  on  laying  the  report  on 
the  table  and  ordering  it  to  be  printed. 

The  motion  of  Mr.  Doniphan  was  then  agreed 
to. 

On  motion  of  Mr.  Shackelford,  of  Howard, 
the  Convention  then  adjourned. 


NINTH    DAY. 

St.  Lodis,  March  11th,  1861. 

Convention  met  at  10  o'clock,  a.  m. 

President  Price  in  the  Chair. 

Prayer  by  the  Chaplain. 

The  Journal  was  read  and  approved. 

Mr.  Birch  offered  the  following  resolution : 

Whereas,  an  article  appears  in  the  Missouri 
Republican,  of  this  morning,  of  which  the  fol- 
lowing is  a  copy : 

For  the  Republican. 
A  Plot  to  Precipitate  Missouri  into  Dis- 
union Exposed  ! 

Mr.  Editor:  "Within  the  last  four  days  a  promi- 
nent gentleman  of  this  city,  who  was  a  candidate  for 
the  Convention  on  the  Constitutional  ticket,  was 
waited  upon  by  several  gentlemen,  who  stated  that 
the  Convention  which  is  now  in  session  was  unsound, 
and  that  it  was  necessary  to  take  measures  to  have 
this  State  secede;  and  to  bring  about  that  result  the 
gentleman  to  whom  I  allude  was  invited  to  meet  his 
visitors  on  a  certain  designated  evening,  and  at  an 
appointed  place,  to  take  the  preliminary  6teps  to 
force  the  State  into  secession. 

The  gentleman  above  referred  to  answered  his  visi- 
tors by  informing  them  that  they  had  mistaken  their 
man— that  he  was  not  a  secessionist,  and  was  opposed 
to  secession.    His  visitors  charged  him  with  chang- 


ing his  ground,  which  charge  was  denied,  and  the 
matter  was  cut  short  by  the  gentlemen  being  distinct- 
ly and  emphatically  told  that  if  they  held  their  meet- 
ing they  would  be  exposed. 

The  meeting  was  not  held  at  the  place  indicated* 
and  it  is  not  known  whether  it  was  held  at  any  oth- 
er place  or  not. 

The  gentleman  who  gave  me  the  foregoing  infor- 
mation is  the  same  who  was  waited  upon  by  the  par- 
ty of  secessionists;  and,  although  I  have  not  attempt- 
ed to  give  his  language,  I  give  the  substance  of  the 
tacts  he  told  me,  and  I  doubt  not  that  they  can  be 
substantiated,  if  need  be.  My  informant  is  a  man  of 
truth,  and  will  not  eat  his  words.  E. 

Resolved,  That  a  committee  be  appointed  to 
inquire  into  the  facts  and  circumstances  connect- 
ed with  so  daring  a  conspiracy  as  the  one  therein 
foreshadowed,  and  that  said  committee  have  pow- 
er to  send  for  persons  and  papers,  and  to  sit  dur- 
ing the  session  of  this  Convention. 

Mr.  Birch.  Ordinarily,  Mr.  President,  no 
person  pays  less  attention  than  I  do  to  what  may 
be  termed  the  sensation  dispatches,  or  the  sensa- 
tion articles,  of  the  political  press.  I  have  such 
information,  however,  in  regard  to  the  matter 
and  the  veracity  of  this  article,  that  with  the 
views  I  entertain  of  our  duties  here,  I  may  not 
forego  the  corresponding  duty  I  have  risen  to  per- 
form. I  have  the  information  from  unquestiona- 
ble sources— and  this,  without  involving  any 
breach  of  courtesy  or  of  confidence — that  the 
author  of  the  communication  embodied  in  my  re- 
solution is  Captain  K  J.  Eaton,  a  name  as  fami- 
liarity and  as  favorably  known  to  us  as  that  of 
any  citizen  of  the  State;  and  that  the  gentleman 
in  this  city  who  was  thus  mistakenly  approached 
by  a  deputation  or  committee  from  Jefferson  (as 
I  understand  it)  was  Col.  L.  V.  Bogy,  a  citizen  of 
equal  position,  and  of  the  same  elevated  order  of 
unyielding  patriotism.  Under  circumstances  thus 
challenging  our  attention,  it  is  but  demanded  of 
us  that  we  look  further  into  them,  and  that  as  men 
who  have  been  selected  and  sworn  to  "see  that  the 
State  suffers  no  detriment,"  we  should  shrink 
from  no  duty,  however  unpleasant  or  responsible, 
that  may  confront  us,  either  here  or  elsewhere, 
now  or  hereafter.  If  the  Committee,  as  the  or- 
gan of  the  Convention,  can  do  no  more,  it  can  at 
least  draw  forth  and  report  the  names  and  posi- 
tion of  the  desperate  and  reckless  conspirators 
who  thus,  under  the  frown  of  the  Legislature  and 
the  frown  of  this  Convention  of  the  People,  are 
alleged  to  be  devising  secret  and  revolutionary 
means  "to  force  the  State  into  secession."  I  add 
no  more,  at  present,  except  to  repeat  that,  ac- 
cording to  my  estimate  of  our  duties  here,  they 
reduce  themselves,  in  this  connection,  to  the  max- 
im upon  which  the  most  illustrious  of  our  heroes 
was  but  instinctively  impelled  to  act  upon  a  mem- 
orable occasion  at  New  Orleans— "care,  ne  quid 
detrimenti  respublica  capiat"— not  under  the  of- 
fensive designation  of  "dictators,"  as  in  Rome, 
where  the  words  I  have  quoted  constituted  the 


60 


charge  of  the  office,  but  as  representatives  of  the 
people,  who  will  he  with  us  in  all  legitimate  at- 
tempts to  fathom  and  to  frustrate  the  peril  which 
has  been  thus  foreshadowed  to  us,  as  they  were 
with  the  illustrious  hero  to  whom  I  have  allu- 
ded, and  that,  in  spite  of  the  technicalities  and 
the  cavils  which  were  then  thrown  in  7iis  way,  as 
they  may  now  be  thrown  in  ours.  I  trust,  there- 
fore, that  the  resolution  may  be  adopted,  the  com- 
mittee appointed,  and  go  into  session  without  un- 
necessary delay. 

Mr.  Sheeley.  Are  any  members  of  the  Con- 
vention implicated  ? 

Mr.  Birch.  Not  that  I  am  aware  of  or  believe. 
Through  the  agency  of  the  committee,  however, 
we  may  examine  members  of  the  Convention  as 
well  as  any  other  persons. 

Mr.  Knott.  I  desire  to  ask  a  question.  What 
docs  the  gentleman  propose  to  do  with  these  men 
if  he  finds  they  are  in  favor  of  taking  Missouri 
out  of  the  Union.  What  will  he  do  with  them  if 
he  finds  out  that  they  are  Catalines,  delegated  to 
carry  us  out  of  the  Union,  whether  we  want  to  go 
or  not  ? 

Mr.  Birch.  Well,  Mr.  President,  I  would  mea- 
sure my  words  and  hence  repress  my  feelings 
accordingly.  I  have  said  only  on  this  floor,  that 
I  would  present  those  names  to  this  Convention, 
and  I  would  trust  the  Convention  ity  any  subse- 
quent or  ultimate  steps.  We  are  called  here,  un- 
less our  mission  is  a  mockery,  to  see  that  this 
State  suffers  no  detriment  at  the  hands  of  any 
one  whatever,  and  we  have  all  the  powers  here 
that  the  people  of  Missouri  have  for  that  purpose. 
I  answer  the  gentleman,  therefore,  that,  if  we 
should  get  the  names,  and  if  we  should  get  such 
facts  in  connection  with  the  names,  as  will  justify 
any  future  or  further  action  of  this  Convention, 
I  fear  not  but  that  it  will  take  such  steps  as  may 
seem  necessary  to  preserve  the  State.  That  is 
all  I  desire  to  say  now  upon  this  subject. 

Mr.  Knott.  Does  the  gentleman  believe  that 
individuals  can  take  this  State  out  of  the  Union, 
if  this  Convention  is  not  willing  to  go  ? 

Mr.  Birch.  I  will  answer  that.  I  think  this 
Convention  can  possibly  prevent  bad  men  from 
carrying  out  then-  combinations — if  it  should  be 
found  they  are  in  combination  all  over  the  State 
— that  we  may  possibly  arrest  their ,  alleged  pro- 
gramme of  hoisting  a  secession  flag  on  a  given 
day  in  every  village  of  the  State,  as  the  signal  of 
general  revolt.  I  think  we  may  have  the  power 
to  at  least  countervail  them  in  their  mad  and 
traitorous  career.  But,  as  I  have  not  anticipated 
these  questions,  I  will  not  say  what  else  it  might 
become  us  to  do ;  but  I  doubt  not  the  Convention 
will  do  whatever  it  may  become  it  to  do,  alter  its 
appropriate  committee  shall  have  collected  and 
spread  before  it  the  facts  which  are  alleged  to  ex- 
ist in  this  case. 


Mr.  McCormick.    I  ask  for  the  reading  of  the 
resolution. 
The  resolution  was  read  by  the  Secretary. 
Mr.  Knott.    I  do  not  think  there  is  much  dan- 
ger of  Missouri  being  hurried  out  of  the  Union. 
I  think  the  people  of  Missouri  have  very  recently 
expressed    their   determination  to    stay  in  the 
Union  by  an  overwhelming  majority,  and  100, 
500,  or  10,000  designing  spirits  cannot  hurt  us; 
and  more  than  that,  I  cannot  see  any  practical 
benefit  to  be  derived  from  the  adoption  of  this 
resolution  to  raise  a  committee.    What  is  it  de- 
signed for  ?    To  put  a  mark  upon  those  men,  that 
they  may  be  known  for  all  time  to  come?    If  we 
are  to  descend  from  the  business  which  we  were 
sent  here  to  transact  to  put  marks  on  men,  we 
may  expect  to  continue  in  session  five  years  to 
come ;  and  if  we  come  down  from  the  high  posi- 
tion that  the  people  of  the  State  have  given  us 
upon  this  floor — if  we  descend  to  investigate  aft 
the  conjectures  of  any  anonymous  report  in  the 
newspapers — sir,  we  will  have  labor  that  will  take 
us  ten  years  to  perform.    I  see  no  practical  good 
to  be  derived  from  the  raising  of  this  committee. 
I,  therefore,  hope,  sir,  that  the  Convention  will 
lay  it  immediately  on  the  table,  and  I  make  that 
motion. 
Mr.  Birch.    I  call  for  the  ayes  and  noes. 
The  roll  was  then  called  and  the  motion  to 
table  rejected  by  the  following  vote : 

Ayes— Messrs.  Allen,  Bartlett,  Bass,  Bast, 
Bogy,  Brown,  Cayce,  Collier,  Comingo,  Craw- 
ford, Donnell,  Frayser,  Flood,  Givens,  Gorin, 
Harbin,  Hatcher,  Hill,  Hough,  Hudgins,  Kidd, 
Knott,  Matson,  Noell,  Redd,  Sayer,  Shackelford 
of  Howard,  Sheeley,  Waller,  Watkins— 30. 

Noes — Messrs.  Birch,  Breckinridge,  Broadhead, 
Bridge,  Bush,  Calhoun,  Drake,  Eitzen,  Foster, 
Gantt,  Gravelly,  Henderson,  Hendricks,  Hitch- 
cock, Holmes,  Holt,  How,  Howell,  Irwin,  Isbell, 
Jackson,  Jamison,  Johnson,  Leeper,  Linton, 
Long,  Marmaduke,  Marvin,  Maupin,  McClurg, 
MeCormack,  McDowell,  McFerran,  Meyer,  Mor- 
row, Moss,  Norton,  Orr,  Phillips,  Ray,  Ritchey, 
Ross,  Rowland,  Scott,  Smith  of  Linn,  Smith  of 
St.  Louis,  Turner,  Wilson,  Woodson,  Woolfolk, 
Wright,  Vanbuskirk,  Zimmerman  and  Mr.  Pres- 
ident—56. 

explanation  or  votes. 
Mr.  Bogy.  Not  being  able  to  discover  that  any 
practical  good  can  be  derived  from  the  adoption 
of  the  resolution,  I  shall  vote  aye. 

Mr.  Breckinridge.  I  would  say,  Mr.  Presi- 
dent, that  I  cannot  see  how  it  could  be  possible 
for  the  Convention  to  refuse  to  consider  a  matter 
which  reaches  directly  to  the  honor,  peace,  and 
safety  of  the  State,  and  therefore  vote  against 
laying  the  resolution  on  the  table. 

Mr.  Foster.  I  am  not  disposed  to  consume 
the  time  of  this  Convention  unnecessarily,  sir, 
but  as  the  Convention  has  not  been  doing  much 


61 


for  a  number  of  days,  and  as  I  am  one  of  those 
individuals  who  are  disposed,  not  only  in  this 
Convention,  but  everywhere  else,  to  place  the 
mark  of  condemnation  on  any  individual  who  is 
plotting  against  my  country,  I  shall  vote  ?io. 

Mr.  Redd.  I  was  not  in  my  seat  when  the 
resolution  was  read,  and  cannot,  therefore,  vote 
understandingly. 

The  Chair.    The  gentleman  is  excused. 

Mr.  Redd.  I  do  not  want  to  be  excused,  but 
would  like  to  have  the  resolution  read. 

The  Chair.  The  gentleman  should  have  called 
for  the  reading  of  the  resolution  before  the  roll 
was  called,  if  he  was  in  the  house.  The  question 
will  be  on  granting  leave  to  have  the  resolution 
read.     [Voices — leave !] 

Leave  was  thereupon  granted,  and  the  resolu- 
tion read  again. 

Mr.  Redd.  Mr.  President— I  shall  vote  aye 
on  the  question  of  tabling.  My  reason  for  so  do- 
ing is  simply  this,  that  I  don't  believe  this  Con- 
vention is  called  for  any  such  purpose  as  that 
contemplated  in  the  resolution. 

Mr.  Shackelford  of  Howard.  I  feel  mortifi- 
ed that  this  body  of  men  should  be  exercised 
over  sensation  articles  in  newspapers.  We  all 
know  that  plans  are  on  foot  to  lead  Missouri  out 
of  the  Union,  and  it  needs  not  the  action  of  this 
Convention  to  place  the  mark  on  so. disposed 
men.  I  think  our  constituents  have  already 
marked  them.  I  am  afraid  the  adoption  of  all 
such  motions  as  the  one  under  consideration  will 
lead  to  unprofitable  results.  Having  no  appre- 
hensions that  the  people  of  Missouri  can  be 
frightened  into  a  desertion  of  our  glorious  con- 
federacy by  the  tricks  of  politicians,  I  can,  with 
perfect  composure,  vote  aye  on  the  question  of 
laying  this  resolution  on  the  table. 

Mr.  Sheeley.  I  admire  this  Union,  and  while 
perhaps  I  will  stick  in  it  as  long  as  any  man  in 
the  Convention  who  is  not  an  unconditional 
Union  man — and  I  have  come  here  determined  to 
do  everything  to  save  it— still  I  do  not  think  it 
proper  that  I  should  act  the  part  of  a  grand  juror. 
Never  having  been  on  the  Grand  Jury  in  my  life, 
I  do  not  see  proper  now  to  be  placed  on  it  or  be- 
come one  of  a  Grand  Inquest  of  Missouri,  whose 
bur-iness  it  is  to  see  who  are  and  who  are  not 
traitors.    I  shall,  therefore,  vote  aye. 

Mr.  Sol.  Smith.  In  explanation  of  my  vote  I 
will  say,  that  I  will  sit  here  to  oppose  secession  in 
every  form.  If  there  is  a  plan  to  take  Missouri 
out  of  the  Union,  I  should  like  to  know  it.  I 
shall,  therefore,  vote  no. 

FURTHER    PROCEEDINGS. 

The  question  recurring  on  the  adoption  of  the 
resolution, 
Mr.  Comingo  asked  for  its  reading. 
Read  by  the  Secretary. 
Mr.  Crawford  called  for  the  ayes  and  noes. 


Mr.  Hudgins — I  desire  to  say  one  word  in  re- 
gard to  my  vote.  I  am  against  this  resolution, 
not  because  I  favor  any  organization  of  that  kind 
in  the  State,  but  because  I  do  not  believe  it  is  a 
proper  subject  of  investigation  for  this  body.  I 
do  not  believe  the  Convention  ought  to  engage  in 
it. 

The  resolution  was  then  adopted  by  the  follow- 
ing vote: 

Ayes — Messrs.  Birch,  Breckinridge,  Broadhead, 
Bridge,  Bush,  Calhoun,  Douglass,  Drake,  Eitzen, 
Foster,  Gantt,  Gravelly,  Henderson,  Hendricks, 
Hitchcock,  Holmes,  Holt,  How,  Irwin,  Isbell, 
Jackson, Jamison,  Johnson,  Leeper,  Linton,  Long, 
Marmaduke,  Marvin,  Maupin,  McClurg,  Mc- 
Cormack,  McDowell,  McFerran,  Meyer,  Morrow 
Moss,  Norton,  Orr,  Phillips,  Ray,  Ritchie,  Ross' 
Rowland,  Scott,  Smith  of  Linn,  Smith  of  St. 
Louis,  Turner,  Woodson,  Wright,  Vanbuskirk, 
Zimmerman,  Mr.  President — 52. 

Noes— Messrs.  Allen,  Bartlett,  Bass,  Bast,  Bo- 
gy, Brown,  Cayce,  Collier,  Comingo,  Crawford, 
Donnell,  Dunn,  Frayser,  Flood,  Givens,  Gorin, 
Harbin,  Hatcher,  Hill,  Hough,  Howell,  Hudgins, 
Kidd,  Knott,  Matson,  Noell,  Sayer,  Shackelford 
of  Howard,  Sheeley,  Waller— 30. 

The  President  appointed  Messrs.  Birch,  Sheeley 
and  Ray  as  the  committee. 

Mr.  Sheeley.  I  should  like  to  be  excused 
from  serving  on  the  committee.  I  cannot  for  my 
life  see  how  any  good  can  come  from  this  inves- 
tigation. 

Mr.  Birch.  I  trust  the  gentleman  will  be  ex- 
cused, if  he  presses  it. 

Mr.  Sheeley  was  thereupon  excused,  and  Mr. 
Drake  substituted  in  his  place. 

Mr.  Ray.    I  would  also  ask  to  be  excused. 

Excused,  and  Mr.  Zimmerman  substituted. 

Mr.  Moss.  I  would  inquire  if  the  hour  has  ar- 
rived for  taking  up  the  majority  report  of  the 
Committee  on  Federal  Relations  ? 

The  Chair.    That  report  will  now  be  taken  up. 

Mr.  Moss.  I  will  ask  if  amendments  are  now 
in  order. 

The  Chair.  The  report  must  first  be  read. 

The  Secretary  began  to  read  the  report,  when, 

On  motion  of  Mr.  Sheeley,  the  further  reading 
was  dispensed  with. 

Mr.  Moss  offered  the  following  amendment : 

Amend  the  fifth  resolution  by  adding,  "and 
further  believing  that  the  fate  of  Missouri  de- 
pends upon  the  peaceable  adjustment  of  our 
present  difficulties,  she  will  never  countenance  or 
aid  a  seceding  State  in  making  war  on  the  Gen- 
eral Government,  nor  will  she  furnish  men  and 
money  for  the  purpose  of  aiding  the  General 
Government  in  any  attempt  to  coerce  a  seceding 
State. 

Mr.  Sheeley.  Will  it  be  in  order  to  consider 
the  resolutions  before  taking  action  on  the  re- 
port?   I  trust  we  shall  first  take  up  the  report 


62 


and,  if  we  adopt  that,  we  may  then  proceed  to  the 
resolutions. 

The  Chair.  I  hold  the  Convention  can  do  in 
that  respect  as  it  pleases. 

Mr.  Sheeley.  My  impression  is  we  had  bet- 
ter take  up  the  report.  I  am  informed  the  com- 
mittee have  some  verbal  amendments  to  offer  to 
it,  and  it  seems  to  me  the  committee  should  have 
leave  to  offer  them  now. 

Mr.  Breckinridge.  I  suggest,  Mr.  President, 
that,  as  I  understand,  the  proper  mode  of  pro- 
ceeding will  be  for  the  report  of  the  Committee  to 
be  read,  and  the  debate  to  be  opened  by  the 
Chairman  of  the  Committee,  who  as  yet  has  had 
no  opportunity  to  present  his  view  of  it  to  the 
Convention.  If  I  am  correct  in  this,  the  amend- 
ment offered  by  the  gentleman  from  Clay  should 
be  offered  after  the  Chairman  of  the  Committee 
on  Federal  Relations  has  spoken  to  the  report. 

Mr.  Moss.  I  will  say  in  reply  to  the  sugges- 
tion made  by  the  gentleman  from  St.  Louis,  that 
I  am  one  of  those  who  think  that  the  best  plan  to 
amend  a  report  is  by  offering  amendments  to  that 
report.  I  do  not  believe  in  the  policy  of  attempt- 
ing to  reach  the  objection  in  this  majority  report 
by  presenting  a  minority  report. 

Mr.  Breckinridge.  I  hope  the  gentleman 
will  not  suppose  that  I  expect  to  reach 
any  objection  to  the  majority  report 
through  the  medium  of  the  minority  report. 
I  understand,  however,  the  Committee  on  Fed- 
eral Relations  are  out,  and  it  seems  to  me  that  we 
ought  to  extend  to  them  the  courtesy  of  deferring 
action  until  they  can  be  present.  I  therefore  sug- 
gest that  the  report  be  read,  so  that,  during  the 
reading,  the  Committee  may  come  in. 

Mr.  Moss.  I  will  state  that  I  will  yield  to  the 
suggestion  made  by  the  gentleman  from  St. 
Louis,  with  the  understanding  that,  after  the  re- 
port is  read,  I  shall  have  the  privilege  of  the  floor 
for  the  purpose  of  advocating  my  amendment,  if 
I  see  proper. 
The  Secretary  read  the  report. 
Mr.  Redd,  from  the  Committee  on  Federal  Re- 
la  ions,  presented  the  following 

MINORITY  REPORT. 

The  undersigned,  members  of  the  Committee 
on  Federal  Relations,  being  unable  to  agree  to  the 
report  presented  by  the  Committee,  desire  to  pre- 
sent for  the  consideration  of  the  Convention  the 
views  that  they  entertain  and  that  they  believe 
the  people  of  Missouri  entertain  in  relation  to  the 
causes  that  have  led  to  the  present  alarming  con- 
dition of  our  beloved  Union,  and  the  course  that 
If  pursued  would  most  likely  lead  to  an  amicable 
adjustment  of  the  issues  involved  in  the  present 
crisis,  preserve  the  Union  from  further  disintegra- 
tion, and  restore  peace  and  harmony  to  our  di- 
vided and  distracted  country. 

Within  the  lifetime  of  many  now  living,  our 
Federal  Government,  the  best  that  the  wisdom  of 


man  ever  devised,  was  created  and  put  in  success- 
ful operation;  its  first  President  was  inaugurated 
in  March,  1789,  and  from  that  time  through  a 
long  series  of  years  it  continued  to  increase  in 
territory  and  population,  in  wealth  and  power, 
with  a  rapidity  hitherto  unparalleled  in  the  his- 
tory of  nations,  until  twenty  sovereign  States 
were  admitted  as  members  of  the  Union,  formed 
by  the  original  thirteen ;  and  until  a  compara- 
tively recent  period  these  States  were  all  one 
people,  one  in  sympathy,  one  in  fraternal  feeling, 
one  in  patriotic  devotion  to  that  common  Union, 
of  which  all  were  proud.  How  is  it  now?  Fra- 
ternal feeling  has  fled ;  a  spirit  of  bitter  and  de- 
termined hostility  has  taken  its  place;  State 
stands  arrayed  against  State,  and  section  against 
section,  arming  for  a  deadly  conflict;  seven  of 
the  States  have  withdrawn  from  the  Union  that 
their  fathers  made,  and  made  a  Union  of  their 
own,  and  a  Federal  Government  of  their  own; 
that  Government  with  one  of  the  most  clear- 
headed and  sagacious  statesmen  of  the  age  at  its 
head,  is  organized  in  full  operation,  exercising  all 
the  powers  of  sovereignty,  and  prepared  to  defend 
its  sovereignty  by  military  power. 

Other  States,  alarmed  for  the  safety  of  their 
slave  institutions,  are  preparing  to  follow  their 
example;  the  din  of  preparation  for  civil  strife  is 
heard  on  every  hand,  and  that  once  glorious 
Union,  so  dear  to  the  heart  of  every  American 
patriot,  is  now  in  the  progress  of  its  dissolu- 
tion. 

There  is  cause  for  all  this ;  a  free  people  capa- 
ble of  self-government  do  not  destroy  institutions 
of  which  they  were  once  so  proud,  and  incur  all 
the  risks  of  civil  strife,  without  some  adequate 
cause;  all  experience  demonstrates  that  mankind 
are  more  disposed  to  bear  with  great  and  press- 
ing evils  than  to  resort  to  revolution  with  all  its 
attendant  horrors. 

It  is  our  duty  to  examine  into  the  causes  that 
have  environed  the  Union  with  perils  and  threat- 
ened its  utter  destruction,  and,  if  possible,  devise 
a  plan  to  save  it  from  further  disintegration. — 
When  we  look  back  over  the  history  of  our  coun- 
try, we  see  arising  in  the  Northern  States  an  anti- 
slavery  party,  whose  sole  cohesive  principle  was 
a  bitisr  hostility  to  the  slave  institutions  of  the 
Southern  States.  At  first  that  party  was  weak, 
its  members  few,  and  scattered  abroad,  ynd  con- 
sidered by  the  Northern  people  themselves  as 
mischievous  fanatics ;  it  continued  gradually,  but 
steadily,  to  increase,  until  political  parties  began 
to  court  its  aid;  from  this  time  it  progressed  rap- 
idly in  numbers,  and  increased  in  its  virulence 
and  hatred  to  Southern  slave  institutions  and  to 
slave-holders.  Political  demagogues,  to  promote 
their  own  selfish  ends,  pandered  to  its  prejudices 
from  the  political  rostrum.  Sensation  preachers, 
to  increase  their  own  importance,  Sabbath  after 
Sabbath,  proclaimed  its  incendiary  doctrines  from 


63 


the  pulpit,  instead  of  preaching  peace  on  earth 
and  good  will  among  men.  It  seized  on  the  lit- 
erature of  the  North,  and  corrupted  it  in  all  its 
channels. 

Books  written  to  inculcate  its  destructive  here- 
sies were  introduced  into  its  Sabbath  schools, 
common  schools  and  institutions  of  learning  of 
higher  grade. 

A  large  portion  of  the  Northern  press,  literary, 
religious  and  political,  teemed  with  articles  mis- 
representing and  denouncing  Southern  institu- 
tions and  Southern  men. 

Nourished  and  fostered  by  these  means,  this 
anti-slavery  party  obtained  the  control  of  the 
governments  of  the  free  States,  and  as  those 
States  came  under  their  control  they  violated  the 
compact  that  united  them  to  their  sister  States  of 
the  South.  By  that  compact  they  had  covenant- 
ed that  a  fugitive  slave  found  within  their  bor- 
ders should  be  delivered  up  upon  demand  of  his 
master.    They  violated  that  compact, 

1st,  By  failing  to  enact  laws  providing  for  his 
delivery ; 

2d,  By  refusing  the  master  aid  and  permitting 
their  lawless  citizens  to  deprive  him  of  his  prop- 
erty by  mob  violence; 

3d,  When  Congress  interposed  for  his  relief  by 
the  enactment  of  the  Fugitive  Slave  Law,  they 
trampled  that  law  under  foot,  and  nullified  it  by 
deliberate  State  legislation. 

By  the  compact  that  united  the  Northern  States 
to  their  Southern  sisters,  they  covenanted  that 
they,  upon  demand  made,  would  deliver  up  for 
trial  any  fugitive  from  justice  charged  (by  indict- 
ment) with  treason,  felony  or  other  crime. 

They  have  willfully  and  deliberately  violated 
this  covenant.  They  have  (without  passing  laws 
to  restrain  them)  permitted  their  citizens  to  in- 
vade the  soil  of  Southern  States,  steal  their  slaves, 
and  incite  them  to  insurrection,  and  when  the 
felon  has  been  indicted  and  demanded,  they  have 
refused  to  give  him  up,  and,  to  add  insult  to  in- 
jury, they  have  justified  the  act  by  enunciating  a 
proposition  that  strikes  at  the  foundation  of  slave 
institutions,  that  as  man  cannot  hold  property  in 
man,  therefore  slave  stealing  is  no  crime;  and 
while  there  has  been  hitherto  no  just  ground  of 
complaint  against  the  Federal  Government,  that 
Government  has  been  powerless  to  remedy  the 
evil. 

This  anti-slavery  party,  after  having  divided 
church  organizations  and  destroyed  the  noble  old 
Whig  and  the  gallant  young  American  party, 
has  upon  their  ruins  erected  (in  disregard  of  the 
warning  voice  of  the  father  of  his  country)  a 
purely  sectional  party,  called  the  Republican 
party. 

We  do  not  desire  to  do  that  party  injustice.  It 
should  be  judged  as  all  other  parties  are  judged, 
by  its  platform  and  the  principles  enunciated  by  I 


its  representative  men,  and  upon  the  enunciation 
of  which  the  party  elevates  them  to  power. 

That  party,  through  its  chosen  leader,  pro- 
claimed the  dangerous  and  destructive  heresies 
that  our  Federal  Government  cannot  continue  to 
exist  as  our  fathers  made  it,  part  slave  and  part 
free ;  that  in  that  condition  it  is  a  house  divided 
against  itself  and  cannot  stand ;  that  it  must  be- 
come all  one  or  all  the  other;  that  an  irrepressible 
conflict  is  progessing  between  freedom  and  slave- 
ry, and  that  it  must  continue  until  the  public 
mind  can  rest  satisfied  in  the  belief  that  slavery 
is  in  the  process  of  extinction ;  that  hereafter  the 
slave  property  of  Southern  men  shall  be  taken 
from  them  by  Congressional  legislation,  if  they 
take  it  with  them  into  the  Territories,  the  com- 
mon property  of  all  the  States. 

The  free  States,  deaf  to  the  earnest  remonstran- 
ces of  their  Southern  sisters,  regardless  of  the 
warning  voice  of  a  people  jealous  of  their  rights, 
indorsed  the  doctrines  of  that  party  and  elevated 
its  leader  to  the  Presidential  chair  by  large  ma- 
jorities in  all  the  free  States,  except  one,  thus 
placing  the  Federal  Government,  to  which  the 
South  had  hitherto  looked  as  its  friend,  in  the 
hands  of  its  enemies. 

These  are  the  causes  that  have  dissolved  the 
Union,  and  have  driven  State  after  State  beyond 
its  pale;  and  these  are  the  causes  that  will  drive 
the  remaining  slave  States  out  of  the  Union,  un- 
less these  sectional  issues  can  be  settled  upon 
some  basis  consistent  with  security  to  their  slave 
institutions. 

This  Convention  was  called  for  no  ordinary 
purpose,  it  has  assembled  upon  no  ordinary  oc- 
casion; while  the  people  of  Missouri  will  never 
surrender  their  slave  institutions  at  the  bidding 
of  any  earthly  power,  they  ardently  desire  the 
preservation  of  the  Union  and  the  preservation 
of  their  slave  institutions  in  the  Union;  this  is 
the  high  mission  to  which  this  Convention  is 
called;  this  can  be  accomplished  only  by  action, 
prompt,  decided  action.  Delay  is  dangerous;  we 
know  not,  no  human  sagacity  can  penetrate  the 
dark  vail  that  hides  the  future  and  tell  us  at  what 
hour  the  country  may  be  aroused  from  its  repose 
by  the  clash  of  arms.  The  plan  proposed  by  the 
committee  is,  that  this  Convention  request  the 
Legislature  to  pass  an  act  calling  on  Congress  to 
call  a  National  Convention,  to  propose  a  basis  of 
settlement  in  the  shape  of  amendments  to  the 
Constitution,  to  be  afterwards  submitted  to  the 
States  for  ratification  or  rejection.  This  amounts 
to  doing  nothing,  literally  nothing;  if  the  plan 
was  practicable,  it  would  require  eighteen  months 
or  two  years  to  carry  it  into  effect.  But  is  it 
practicable,  is  there  a  reasonable  ground  to  hope 
that  it  would  save  the  Union  ?  Let  us  see :  Con- 
gress can  only  act  when  called  on  by  two-thirds 
of  the  States;  Congress  takes  the  position  that 
the  seceded  States  are  yet  in  the  Union.    On  this 


64 


"basis  it  would  require  the  action  of  Legislatures 
of  twenty-three  States  uniting  in  the  call.  Sev- 
eral of  these  Legislatures  having  already  taken 
their  position  against  any  amendments,  conse- 
quently would  not  unite  in  the  call,  and  the  plan 
would  fall  still-born. 

But  even  if  such  a  Convention  should  assemble, 
how  would  matters  stand?  Eight  Slave  States 
(it  they  remained  in  the  Union,  which  is  exceed- 
ingly doubtful)  would  go  into  Convention  with 
nineteen  Free  States,  and  take  such  amendments 
as  those  States  controlled  by  an  anti-slavery  party 
might  be  disposed  to  grant. 

The  preservation  of  the  Union,  in  the  opinion 
of  the  minority,  should  be  the  earnest  desire  not 
only  of  every  American  patriot,  but  also  of  every 
friend  of  civil  liberty  throughout  the  habitable 
globe;  that  this  may  he  done  is  the  earnest  prayer 
of  every  American  mother  throughout  this  great 
republic;  that  it  shall  be  preserved  is  the  fixed  de- 
termination of  a  large  majority  of  the  citizens  of 
the  Border  Slave  States  whose  citizens  have  ever 
been  not  only  loyal  to  the  Constitution  and  the 
Union,  but  also  among  the  foremost  in  times 
past,  when  their  country  was  in  danger,  to  peril 
their  lives  to  uphold  her  institutions.  These  States 
by  assuming  the  position  of  mediators  between 
the  hostile  sections,  and  taking  a  decided  posi- 
tion, and  proclaiming  to  those  sectional  parties 
who  are  now  arming  for  fraternal  strife,  that  they 
shall  keep  the  peace. 

These  States,  by  meeting  each  other  in  conven- 
tion, and  agreeing  on  measures  of  compromise 
and  adjustment  founded  on  the  principles  of 
equal  rights  and  justice  to  all,  and  by  firmly,  yet 
in  a  spirit  of  fraternal  kindness,  insisting  on  the 
compromises  so  agreed  upon  as  the  basis  on 
which  all  irritating  differences  shall  be  settled, 
can,  in  the  opinion  of  the  undersigned,  be  the 
means  of  preserving  the  Union,  reconstructing 
it  upon  a  permanent  basis,  reconciling  conflict- 
ing interests,  and  restoring  peace  and  tranquility 
to  the  country. 

Resolved,  by  the    People  of  the  State    of 
Missouri,  in  Convention  assembled : 

1st.  That  the  State  of  Missouri  invites  the  States 
of  Virginia,  North  Carolina,  Maryland,  Ken- 
tucky, Tennessee,  Arkansas  and  Delaware,  to 
send  Commissioners  to  meet  in  Convention  with 
Commissioners  appointed  by  Missouri,  at  the  city 

of  Nashville,  Tennessee,  on  the day  of 

next,  to  agree  upon  a  basis  of  settlement  by  way 
of  constitutional  amendments  that  will  preserve 
the  Union,  and  afford  an  adequate  guarantee  for 
the  preservation  of  their  slave  institutions  and 
the  constitutional  rights  of  their  citizens,  and  to 
take  such  steps  as  they  may  deem  necessary  to 
have  such  amendments  presented  to  the  people  of 
the  free  States  for  ratification  or  rejection. 


2.  That be  and  they  are  hereby  appoint- 
ed Commissioners  to  represent  the  State  of  Mis- 
souri in  said  Convention. 

3.  That is  hereby  appointed  a  Commis- 
sioner to  the  State  of  Virginia;  Commis- 
sioner to  North  Carolina;  Commissioner  to 

Maryland; Commissioner  to  Kentucky; 

Commissioner  to  Tennessee;  Commissioner 

to  Arkansas,  and Commissioner  to  Delaware' 

and  said  Commissioners  are  hereby  authorized 
by  the  State  of  Missouri  to  present  to  the  proper 
authorities  of  the  said  States,  respectively,  a  copy 
of  these  resolutions,  and  to  urge  upon  them  the 
appointment  of  Commissioners  to  the  Convention 
contemplated  therein. 

Resolved,  That  the  Commissioners  appointed 
to  said  Convention  by  Missouri  are  directed  to 
present  to  said  Convention  for  their  consideration 
the  resolutions  commonly  known  as  the  Critten- 
den compromise  measures,  extending  the  provis- 
ions with  reference  to  territory  south  of  the  line, 
to  after- acquired  territory,  and  to  say,  on  behalf 
of  Missouri,  that  those  resolutions,  or  any  other 
basis  of  settlement  upon  which  the  border  slave 
States  can  agree,  will  be  satisfactory  to  Missouri. 

The  people  of  the  State  of  Missouri,  being  sat- 
isfied that  the  plan  proposed  in  these  resolutions 
will  (unless  interrupted  by  civil  strife)  not  only 
preserve  the  Union,  but  afford  a  fair  prospect  for 
a  reconstruction  by  bringing  back  the  seceded 
States;  they,  therefore,  earnestly  appeal  to  the 
General  Government  and  the  seceded  States  to 
stay  the  arm  of  military  power  and  preserve  the 
peace  until  the  plan  proposed  can  be  fully  tried. 
And,  to  enforce  such  appeal,  they  would  state  it 
as  their  settled  conviction  that  an  attempt  at  co- 
ercion, under  any  pretext,  would  result  in  civil 
strife,  and  forever  destroy  all  hope  for  the  preser- 
vation or  reconstruction  of  the  Union. 

JOHN  T.  REDD, 
H.  HOUGH. 

Mr.  Redd.  I  desire  to  present  that  report  as  a 
substitute  for  the  majority  report,  if  it  is  in  order. 

The  Chair.  That  would  not  be  in  order.  The 
majority  report  is  the  first  to  be  acted  upon,  and 
in  the  event  of  the  failure  of  the  majority  report, 
the  minority  report  comes  up  next,  as  a  matter  of 
course. 

Mr.  Moss.    I  now  renew  my  amendment. 

Mr.  Gamble.  If  the  gentleman  will  indulge 
me,  I  should  like  to  offer  a  few  opening  remarks 
in  regard  to  the  majority  report.  I  will  state  that 
I  consider  it  due  I  should  do  so  as  Chairman  of 
that  Committee. 

Mr.  Moss.  I  shall  yield  the  floor  to  the  gentle- 
man. 

Mr.  Gamble.  I  am  instructed,  by  those  who 
are  acquainted  with  parliamentary  usage,  that  it 
is  the  duty  of  the  chairman  of  the  committee  that 
hafl  made  a  report  on  any  subject  to  a  deliberative 
body,  to  explain  the  principles  upon  which  that 


65 


report  has  been  recommended,  without  going  in" 
to  any  extended  argument,  at  first,  in  support  of 
the  propositions  submitted  to  the  body,  reserving 
to  the  chairman  the  conclusion  of  the  debate,  and 
the  presentation  of  those  views  at  the  close  of 
the  debate.  Simply  stating  at  full  length  the 
propositions  which  have  been  submitted  by  the 
committee:  The  first  proposition  which  has 
been  submitted  is,  that  at  this  time  there  is 
no  adequate  reason  for  Missouri  to  secede  from 
the  Union— that  there  is  no  adequate  reason  for 
her  cutting  the  cords  that  bind  her  to  her  sister 
States,  and  that  she  entertains  and  will  manifest 
a  disposition  to  compromise  all  difficulties  that 
now  distract  the  country,  and  that  she  will  em- 
ploy all  her  power  and  influence  to  that  end.  In 
the  beginning,  Mr.  President,  I  feel  some  embar- 
rassment in  speaking  upon  such  a  question  as 
this,  and  to  a  body  chosen  by  the  State  of  Mis- 
souri, such  as  is  now  assembled.  To  speak  in 
favor  of  the  Union — of  its  importance — of  the  ad- 
vantages which  we  derive  from  it,  and  of  the 
glory  which  has  been  connected  with  it,  to  those 
who  have  been  elected  because  they  are  friends  of 
the  Union,  would  seem  to  be  entirely  supererogato- 
ry. As  far  as  my  acquaintance  with  the  gentlemen 
of  this  Convention  extends,  I  know  of  no  gentle- 
men who  avow  or  insinuate,  or  in  any  manner 
admit  that  they  entertain  any  unfriendly  feeling 
to  the  Union.  You  may  speak  to  any  member 
of  the  Convention  you  please  in  reference  to  his 
position  about  the  Union,  and  he  will  proclaim 
that  he  is  in  favor  of  the  Union.  How,  then,  in  the 
introduction  of  this  question  before  this  body, 
shall  I  undertake  to  speak  in  favor  of  the  Union, 
when  there  is  a  unanimity,  an  entire  unan- 
imity, among  all  its  members  upon  the  very  view 
which  I  would  endeavor  to  take  and  enforce.  I 
should  continually  be  under  the  necessity  of  re- 
peating to  gentlemen  the  very  arguments  which 
I  am  bound  to  suppose  they  used  before  their 
constituents,  when  they  were  candidates  for  elec- 
tion to  this  body.  I  am  bound  to  suppose 
that,  as  they  avow  themselves  friends  to 
the  Union,  they  entertain  a  deliberate 
purpose  to  do  nothing  that  will  in  any  de- 
gree endanger  the  continuance  or  the  perma- 
nency of  that  Union  or  in  any  degree  weaken  the 
attachment  of  the  people  to  the  Union  which  is 
thus  enshrined  in  their  hearts.  I  am  bound  to 
suppose  this,  because  I  am  bound  to  suppose  that 
those  who  avow  themselves  in  favor  of  the  Union 
are  sincere — as  sincere  as  I  am — as  honest  in  the 
views  they  entertain  and  express  as  I  am  in  the 
views  I  entertain  and  express,  and  therefore  the 
difficulty  is  continually  presenting  itself  to  me, 
how  discuss  a  question  in  which  the  friends 
agree  with  entire  unanimity.  If  I  speak  to  gen- 
tlemen of  the  Convention  of  the  glories  which 
cluster  around  that  flag — if  I  speak  to  them  of 
the  pride  that  every  American  citizen  in  every 


quarter  of  the  globe  has  in  the  American  Union, 
I  speak  but  what  I  am  bound  to  suppose  every 
gentleman  fully  understands  and  appreciates, 
when  he  says  he  is  in  favor  of  the  Union.  I 
speak  the  sentiments  that  I  am  bound  to  suppose 
were  the  sentiments  uttered  before  the  people  by 
gentlemen  who  were  candidates  for  election  to 
this  Convention.  Therefore,  I  shall  be  but  wast- 
ing time,  when,  as  I  see,  there  is  no  expression 
antagonistic  to  the  Union.  I  should  be  but  wast- 
ing the  time  of  the  Convention  if  I  should  go 
through  an  enumeration  of  the  blessings  which 
we,  as  the  people  of  Missouri,  have  derived  from 
our  connection  with  the  common  Government  of 
our  country.  Sir,  we  are  assembled  here  as  the 
people  of  the  State  of  Missouri.  The  position 
which  we  occupy,  is  a  position  in  itself  peculiar. 
We  have  our  common  history — we  have  the  his- 
tory of  our  connection  with  this  great  Govern- 
ment of  which  we  are  a  part;  we  have  been  the 
recipients  of  its  beneficent  action;  we  have  grown 
up  under  its  protection,  and  we  have  received 
nothing  but  blessings  from  it.  I  was  here  before 
it  was  born  as  a  State — when  it  was  weak  and 
feeble — when  the  Indians  were  on  our  Western 
borders,  and  from  whom  our  extreme  frontier 
settlements  apprehended  difficulties  —  and  were 
we  left  to  ourselves  ?  were  we  left  to  protect  our- 
selves against  the  savages  who  might  desire  to 
imbrue  their  hands  in  the  blood  of  the 
wives  and  children  of  Missourians?  No! 
The  United  States,  at  her  own  cost — under  a  Na- 
tional Government,  for  national  purposes,  and 
to  carry  out  national  obligations — maintained  its 
own  military  forts,  garrisoned  by  its  own  troops 
at  its  own  expense,  for  our  protection.  Does 
our  commerce  meet  with  impediment  or  obstruc- 
tion in  its  national  outlets  to  the  ocean?  then  the 
United  States  expends  its  means  in  endeavoring 
to  remove  those  obstructions.  She  does  not 
leave  us  to  protect  ourselves,  but  freely 
expends  her  money,  that  we  may  have  all 
the  facilities  that  we  may  require,  in  order 
that  our  resources  may  be  more  rapidly 
and  advantageously  developed.  To  come  to 
our  land  system.  Has  she  shown  any  niggardly 
spirit  towards  us,  or  any  disinclination  at  all  to 
foster  our  highest  interests.  When  the  poor  man 
settles  his  quarter  section  of  land  in  any  portion 
of  the  country.,  and  is  unable  to  pay  for  it,  even  at 
a  mininiumn  price,  reduced  as  it  is  to  a  mere 
fraction  of  the  actual  value  of  the  property,  what 
does  she  do  in  reference  to  persons  in  that  condi- 
tion ?  She  lays  her  hand  upon  those  who  would 
take  this  property  for  their  own  advancement  or 
speculation,  and  compels  them  to  yield  to  the  man 
who  has  selected  a  portion  of  the  public  domain,  in 
order  that  he  may  establish  thereon  a  domicil 
and  rear  his  children.  When  we  wish  to  engage 
in  any  enterprise  to  develop  the  commercial  and 
agricultural  interests  of  the    country,  and  are 


66 


unable  to  raise  the  money  requisite  to  carry  out 
such  an  enterprise,  she  says,  "Here  is  a  large 
domain  we  own  within  your  territories;  use  it 
freely;  we  give  millions  in  order  to  help  you 
build  your  railroads,"  and  so,  gentlemen  of  this 
Convention,  all  tho  action  that  the  United  States 
Government  has  taken  in  relation  to  Missouri,  and 
the  relations  we  sustain  towards  the  United  States, 
have  been  such  as  to  benefit  ourselves.  Nothing 
of  aggression  on  the  part  of  the  United  States, 
composed  as  the  United  States  is,  of  all  the 
States — nothing  of  a  disposition  to  hamper  or 
crush  out  the  energies  of  Missouri;  nothing  of  a 
disposition  to  leave  us  to  ourselves  to  encounter 
difficulties  that  are  liable  to  arise  in  every  new 
and  growing  State;  but,  on  the  other  hand, 
every  disposition  to  foster  our  interests  as  a  State, 

Sir,  I  am  bound  to  suppose  that  every  member 
of  this  Convention,  as  he  avows  himself  in  favor 
of  the  Union,  and  as  he  has  avowed  himself  be- 
fore his  constituents  in  favor  of  the  Union, 
will  do  nothing  to  estrange  the  State  from  the 
General  Government.  How  then  shall  I  speak 
further,  before  a  Convention  that  is  unanimously 
in  favor  of  the  Union,  in  commendation  of  this 
fabric  which  our  fathers  have  reared,  and  which 
was  bequeathed  to  us  from  those  who  were  peer- 
less in  wisdom  as  in  valor.  In  opening,  therefore, , 
before  the  Convention  the  view  which  the  commit- 
tee present  in  reference  to  the  impolicy  of  taking 
any  steps  to  sever  our  connection  with  the  Gen- 
eral Government,  I  shall  not  detain  fne  Conven- 
tion in  thus  opening  with  any  lengthy  enumera- 
tion of  the  blessings  which  have  flowed  to  us  from 
our  connection  with  the  General  Government.  I 
shall  not  speak  at  length  upon  this  subject,  as 
there  are  others  who  can  speak  to  the  Convention 
and  move  the  hearts  of  those  who  are  true  lovers 
of  their  country  and  in  favor  of  the  government 
under  which  we  live.  I  shall  expect  to  hear  from 
members  of  this  Convention,  and  if  it  becomes 
necessary  to  vindicate  the  propriety  of  the  re- 
solution we  have  presented,  to  wit:  That  we 
shall  remain  longer  in  the  Union— I  shall  ex- 
pect to  hear  that  vindication  coming  from  more 
eloquent  lips  and  with  greater  power  than  I  can 
employ  before  this  body  at  this  time. 

Mr.  President,  it  is  true  that  there  is  discord 
now  reigning  in  what  was  once,  and  very  recent- 
ly, a  happy  family  of  States.  It  is  true  that  there 
has  arisen  an  alienation  of  feeling  and  it  is  true 
that  that  alienation  is  fait  ripening  into 
active  hostility.  But  it  is  because  there  has  been 
an  entire  misapprehension  of  the  relations  that 
the  States  bear  to  each  other — the  interests  in  and 
responsibility  for  each  other's  institutions;  and  I 
am  glad  to  believe  that  a  returning  sense  of  the 
true  measure  of  responsibility  that  the  inhabitants 
of  each  State  owe  to  the  General  Government, 
and  to  the  inhabitants  of  every  other  State— that 
a  true  sense  of  that  responsibility  is  beginning  to 


withdraw  from  the  public  mind  all  over  the 
United  States,  and  at  the  North  particularly,  that 
excitement  that  has  been  hurrying  us  on  to  ruin. 
I  am  glad  to  believe  that  in  the  Border  States 
there  is  manifest  a  disposition  sedulously  to  main- 
tain the  Union,  in  order  that  there  may  be  ulti- 
mately and  permanently  effected  an  agreement 
between  the  extremes,  which  shall  result  in  the 
restoration  of  hannony,  and  in  the  perpetuation 
of  this  glorious  confederacy. 

After  having  passed  beyond  the  question  of 
whether  there  exists  at  this  time  any  reason  for 
our  severing  our  connection  with  the  General 
Government,  we  come  forward  to  make  a  declar- 
ation of  our  desire  for  a  friendly  and  amicable 
adjustment  of  all  difficulties  between  the  sections 
who  differ  in  their  feelings  and  views  of  policy. 
It  is  proper  that  Missouri  shall  avow  this.  It  is 
proper  she  shall  entertain  such  views,  and  shall 
do  all  in  her  power  to  encourage  those  who  are 
divided  in  their  sentiments  in  regard  to  the  sub- 
ject of  slavery,  and  some  of  whom  have  carried 
their  action  to  the  extent  of  attempting  to  sever 
their  connection  with  the  Government.  That 
Missouri  shall  do  all  to  restore  harmony  between 
the  conflicting  portions  of  our  Union,  and  bring 
all  back  to  amicable  relations  and  national  pros- 
perity, a  scheme  has  been  recommended  by  the 
Committee  with  a  view  to  this  object,  and  that  is 
the  calling  of  a  National  Convention,  in  which 
there  shall  be  assembled  the  representatives  of  all 
the  States  of  the  Union.  You  have  recently 
heard  read  a  proposition  that  would  seem  to  be 
adverse  to  the  holding  of  such  a  Convention,  be- 
cause it  was  likely  to  be  futile.  You  have  heard 
a  proposition  that  looks  to  the  holding  of  a  Bor- 
der slave  States  Convention.  The  question  has 
been  before  the  Committee,  as  you  learn 
by  the  minority  report  which  has  just  been 
read.  It  did  not  meet  with  the  favor  of  the 
Committee  because  it  was  regarded  as  in  itself 
unnecessary,  and  involved  in  the  proposition  of 
a  National  Convention.  The  National  Conven- 
tion which  the  Committee  recommend,  is  an  as- 
semblage of  the  representatives  of  all  the  States, 
free  and  slave — all  that  are  in  the  Union.  They 
come  together  for  the  purpose  of  proposing 
amendments  to  the  Constitution,  and  in  the  pres- 
ent case,  inasmuch  as  amendments  to  the  Con- 
stitution are  demanded  by  the  Border  States,  they 
come  to  consult  upon  these  amendments  and  agree 
on  their  adoption.  The  Border  States  are  the 
States  that  will  demand  the  amendments — the 
whole  are  the  States  that  pass  upon  the  question 
whether  that  demand  shall  be  granted  or  not.  I 
say,  therefore,  that  in  the  present  condition  of 
things,  when  the  assembling  of  a  National  Con- 
vention is  for  the  purpose  of  agreeing  to  the 
amendments  that  are  demanded  by  the  inhabit- 
ants of  a  particular  section  of  the  country,  that 
Convention  necessarily  involves  what  is  equiva- 


67 


ient  to  a  Border  States   Convention.    Suppose 
the      members      from      all      the      States      of 
the    Union    assemble    in    such    general    Con- 
vention for  the  purpose  as  before  indicated,  what 
then  will  be  the  proposition?    The  proposition  to 
the  members  from  the  Border   States  will  be: 
"Agree  among  yourselves  as  to  what  you  want 
and  we  will  pass  upon  it."  Is  not  that  the  natural 
result  of  a  General  Convention,  called  under  the 
circumstances  such  as  we  are  now  placed  in,  and 
having  for  its  object  the  amending  of  the  Consti- 
tution upon  subjects  upon  which  there    is  now 
division  and  complaint?    If  such  is  the  object 
of  that  Convention,  the  first  proposition  that  must 
naturally  arise  in  the  mind  of  any  man  participat- 
ing in  it,  would  be :    "You  gentlemen  who  are 
from  the  Border  States,  agree  upon  any  proposi- 
tions that  you  wish  to  submit  and  then  we  will 
take  them  into  consideration,  and  if  we  deem  them 
reasonable,  wc  will  agree  upon    them."    I  say, 
therefore,  that  this  General  Convention  involves 
the  idea  of  a  Border  slave  States  Convention  with 
this  additional  advantage:  that  there  you  have 
assembled  the  body  that  is  at  last  to  pass  upon 
any     proposed   amendment   and    must    agree 
to  recommend  or  reject  them.    There  they  are, 
assembled  from  all  the  States,  having  the  power 
under  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States  to 
pass  upon  the  question  whether  these  proposed 
amendments  shall  be  agreed  to  or  not.    On  the 
contrary,  the  Border  States'  Convention  is  a  body 
of  men  not  known  to  law  and  the  Constitution  of 
the  country,  and  it  can  do  nothing  but  recom- 
mend; it  can  do  nothing  but  agree  upon  amend- 
ments, which  they  may  afterwards  lay  before  a 
General  Convention,  for  ratification  by  the  whole 
country.    It  has  no  power  to  adopt  amendments ; 
it  has  no  power  to  act  upon  any  person  or  law;  it 
has  no  power  to  do  more  than  agree  upon  and  re- 
commend the  amendments  that  they  may  sup- 
pose are  needed  by  the  Border  States.    Such  be- 
ing the  case,  we  perceive  that  by  calling  a  Border 
States  Convention  we  double  the  machinery  with- 
out deriving  any  new  advantage.    There  is  no 
power  to  render  emphatic  what  the  Border  States 
agree  upon.    Now,  I  ask,  is  it  not  more  wise,  more 
statesmanlike,  to  agree  upon  calling  together  a 
body  which,  when  it  does  meet,  is  recognized  by 
the  Constitution,  and  capable  of  acting  under  the 
Constitution  ?    Is  it  not  wiser  and  better  to  call  a 
body  whose  action,  when  it  goes  forth  before  the 
people  of  the  United  States,  shall  carry  with  it  a 
recommendation  that  no  one  can  resist  ?    Such  is 
the  view  that  has  been  entertained  by  the  Com- 
mittee in  recommending  a  General  Convention 
instead  of  a  Border  States  Convention.    We  be- 
lieve that  we  can  better  attain  our  end  by  con- 
sulting the  whole  people  of  the  United  States  in 
a  General  Convention  assembled,   than   by  con- 
sulting only  one  section,  and  that  there  is  now  a 
disposition  manifest  all  through  this  country  to 


harmonize  and  settle  existing  difficulties,  and  re- 
store peace  and  order  to  the  community. 

You  will  notice  that  the  measure  chiefly  recom- 
mended in  the  minority  report,  is  a  Border  States 
Convention.    You  will  also  notice  that  in  several 
parts  that  report  contains  the  emphatic  declara- 
tion of  an  attachment  to  the  Union,  and  it  would 
seem  that  the  minority  who  presented  it,  chiefly 
bases  its  claim  to  the  consideration  of  the  Con- 
vention on  the  ground  that  a  Border  States'  Con- 
vention will  be  more  likely  to  bring  about  a  con- 
ciliation and  the  concerted  action    of  all    par- 
ties, than  the  adoption  of  the  majority  report. 
But     I    apprehend,     gentlemen   of    the   Con- 
vention, when  you  come  to  see  the  compara- 
tive operation  of  the  two  bodies ;  when  you  see 
that  the  one  has  power  to  recommend  and  the 
other  to  recommend  and  pass  upon  also;  when 
you  see   that   a   General    Convention   involves 
the  idea  of  a  Border  States  Convention  besides 
offering  other   advantages — when    you    see  the 
evils  that  may  arise  by  an  assembling  of  those 
who  are  only  on  one  side,  and  take  only  a  one- 
sided aspect,  and  the   good   which   must  result 
from  the  commingling  of  men  from  all  parts  of 
the  Union,  amicably  and  fraternally  disposed, 
you  will  give  the  preference  to  the  majority  re- 
port. 

The  Committee  have  gone  further,  taking  their 
position  as  that  of  a  pacificator,  desirous  of  in- 
tervening between  parties  in  hostile  array  against 
each  other.  They  have  put  forth  their  hands  and 
said  to  each  party ;  "Stay,  be  still  until  we  can 
have  an  opportunity  of  settling  the  difficulty 
between  you!"  The  Convention,  we  have 
taken  it  for  granted,  will  look  upon  the 
policy  of  the  employment  of  forces,  the 
employment  of  arms  of  either  one  section 
or  the  whole  government  against  a  portion  of  the 
government,  as  an  event  greatly  to  be  deplored, 
greatly  involving  in  confusion  and  difficulty  the 
differences  which  now  exist  between  the  different 
sections  of  the  country,  and  rendering  almost  im- 
possible the  reconciliation  of  the  different  parties. 
It  still  is  a  question  of  policy,  not  a  question  of 
constitutional  right,  upon  which  the  voice  of 
each  part  of  the  United  States  ought  to  be 
heard  and  considered  by  each  of  the  parties  who 
now  stand  in  hostile  array  to  each  other.  Our  in- 
terests as  a  State  are  bound  up  inseparably  with 
the  maintenance  of  this  Union;  our  sympathies, 
our  personal  sympathies,  in  a  large  measure,  are 
with  the  people  of  the  South.  Neither  party- 
ought  to  suppose  that  we  would  intentionally  in- 
volve either  of  them  in  any  compromise 
for  arranging  our  difficulties  that  would 
touch  its  honor  or  materially  injure  its 
interests.  They  ought  to  know  that  the  position 
which  we  occupy  is  one  in  which  we  can  recog- 
nize the  existence  of  any  real  fraternal  feeling  in 
every  part  of  the  country,  and  which  enables  us 


68 


to  speak  the  language  of  conciliation.  They  ought 
to  trust  us,  as  those  who  desire  nothing  but  what 
is  for  their  good.  We  therefore  speak  to  both 
parties :  "  Shed  not  the  blood  of  your  brothers; 
come  not  into  hostile  collision;  wake  not  up  the 
furious  passions  that  burn  in  the  American  heart 
at  the  sound  of  the  trumpet  of  war!  Wait,  wait, 
until  all  peaceful  means  are  exhausted;  wait  un- 
til you  can  assemble  in  cooler  moments,  and  with 
all  the  passions  of  our  being  lulled,  so  that  we 
can  rationally  consider,  and  honestly  and  justly 
do  whatever  may  be  necessary  for  the  interest  of 
any  one  of  the  States." 

Gentlemen,  there  is  not  a  more  warlike 
people  on  the  face  of  God's  earth  than  this 
American  people.  Every  man  is  a  soldier;  even 
white  hairs  do  not  prevent  a  man  from  being  a 
soldier.  [Applause  in  the  lobby,  checked  by  the 
President.]  I  say,  therefore,  that  the  strife  be- 
tween the  different  sections  of  the  American  peo- 
ple is  a  strife  such  as  the  world  never  saw  and 
never  will  see  again,  because  they  will  annihilate 
each  other.  I  say,  it  is  a  time  when  every  man 
who  feels  pulsating  in  his  heart  a  love  for  the 
American  brotherhood  to  which  he  belongs, 
ought  to  do  all  in  his  power  to  stay  the  hand  of 
civil  war,  and  it  is  with  that  impulse  that 
the  Committee  here  have,  in  the  language 
of  entreaty,  not  the  language  of  menace, 
not  ranging  on  one  side  or  the  other,  but 
in  the  language  of  a  body  who  would  be 
mediators  between  conflicting  parties,  said:  Shed 
not  each  other's  blood — let  us  interpose  as  medi- 
ators, standing  between  3rou  and  recommending 
what  is  for  your  interest  and  your  honor;  let  us 
cast  all  our  influence  in  the  scale  of  justice  and 
right,  and  we  shall  at  last  see  harmony  and  una- 
nimity in  this  country  restored.  It  is  a  glorious 
mission,  if  we  can  accomplish  such  an  object. 

Gentlemen  of  the  Convention,  the  proudest 
moment  that  ever  anyone  of  you  shall  look 
back  to  in  your  future  life,  will  be  when  you 
participated  in  any  act  or  in  any  course 
of  action  which  was  calculated  to  bring 
back  a  feeling  of  brotherhood  among  the 
different  parts  of  this  American  Republic, 
and  when  you  can  still  feel  that  you  are  united 
to  all  its  parts,  in  all  its  glory,  in  all  its  prosperity, 
and  in  all  its  happiness ;  when,  after  new  glories 
and  honors  have  clustered  around  the  American 
flag,  you  will  recollect  that  you  have  in  any  de- 
gree contributed  to  restore  harmony  among  the 
American  people  in  the  past.  It  will  be  a  feeling 
that  will  soothe  you,  in  all  cases  of  disaster,  that 
will  comfort  and  elevate  you  in  all  your  walks  of 
life. 

Gentlemen,  I  consider  that  I  have  sufficiently 
explained  the  motives  and  objects  of  the  commit- 
tee in  submitting  the  majority  report.  I  appre- 
hend that  in  relation  to  the  question  as  to  wheth- 
er we  should  sever  our  connection  with  the  Union 


or  not,  there  will  be  a  unanimous  vote  against 
any  such  course.  Such  unanimity  would  indeed 
be  a  great  force  and  strength  for  all  the  purposes 
indicated  in  the  report.  I  deem  that  I  have  now 
discharged  the  duty  of  opening  the  debate,  as 
chairman  of  the  committee,  and  shall  close,  re- 
serving to  myself  the  privilege  of  again  address- 
ing the  Convention,  should  it  become  necessary 
in  the  course  of  the  discussion. 

On  motion  of  Mr.  Stewart,  the  Convention 
adjourned  until  3  o'clock  p.  m. 

AFTERNOON   SESSION. 

Convention  re-assembled  at  3  o'clock. 

Mr.  Moss  asked  that  his  amendment  to  the  ma- 
jority report  be  read.  It  was  read  by  the  Secre- 
tary. 

Mr.  Moss.  Gentlemen  of  the  Convention :  In 
offering  this  amendment  to  the  majority  report  of 
the  Committee  on  Federal  Relations,  I  do  not  de- 
sire to  be  understood  as  occupying  a  position 
hostile  to  that  report.  On  the  contrary,  I  con- 
tend that  the  amendment  which  I  offer  is  in  en- 
tire harmony  with  the  doctrine  laid  down  in  the 
Committee's  resolutions.  I  duly  appreciate  the 
importance  of  having  this  report  go  forth  to  the 
people  of  Missouri,  indorsed  by  an  overwhelm- 
ing majority  of  the  members  of  this  Conven- 
tion; and  my  own  opinion  is,  that  the  fewei- 
amendments  we  offer  to  it,  the  better,  provid- 
ed we  reach  the  points  that  are  desired  to  be  al- 
tered in  the  report. 

As  I  remarked  in  the  outset,  I  do  not  consider 
the  amendment  just  offered  as  in  conflict  at  all 
with  the  main  propositions  contained  in  that  re- 
port. My  understanding  of  that  report  is,  that 
it  places  Missouri  upon  this  position:  that  she 
believes  her  fate  depends  upon  the  peaceful  ad- 
justment of  the  present  difficulties;  and  this  is  in 
accordance  with  my  own  sentiments.  Holding 
such  sentiments,  the  resolution  I  have  offered  is 
not  at  all  in  conflict  with  them.  We  say  to  the  two 
contending  sections,  we  are  standing  between 
you.  We  believe  that  our  fate  depends  upon  the 
maintenance  of  the  position  we  occupy.  We 
stand  like  the  rock  in  the  ocean,  rolling  back 
from  us  the  waves  that  come  from  the 
North  and  the  South.  We  say  to  our  natural 
allies,  our  Southern  brethren,  you  must  not 
imperil  our  condition.  Whilst  we  are  struggling 
to  get  additional  guarantees  for  the  protection 
of  our  rights,  you  are  not  to  assail  the  General 
Government,  thereby  precipitating  us  into  revo- 
lution and  ruining  our  cause.  But  whilst  we 
speak  to  them  in  the  solemn  tone  of  remon- 
strance, we  likewise  say  to  the  General  Govern- 
ment, you  shall  not  invade  our  Southern  breth- 
ren. If  you  do,  you  can  look  for  no  aid  from 
Missouri. 

Gentlemen,  it  is  urged  by  some  of  my  friends — 
even  those  who  occupy  the  same  position  in  re- 


69 


gard  to  this  great  question  that  I  do — that  it  is 
enunciating  the  doctrine  of  nullification;  but  you 
should  remember  that  we  are  in  the 
midst  of  a  revolution:  that  it  is  folly 
to  attempt  to  conceal  that  idea  from  the 
people,  and  worst  of  all,  it  is  folly  to  attempt  to 
conceal  that  idea  from  yourselves.  And  now,  I 
submit  it  to  every  man  in  this  assembly,  of  com- 
mon sense,  to  tell  me  whether  Missouri  will  ever 
furnish  a  regiment  to  invade  a  Southern  State  for 
the  purpose  of  coercion.  Never!  Never!  And  gen- 
tlemen, Missouri  expects  this  Convention  to  say 
so.  When  our  friends  in  the  Northern  States — 
those  gallant  patriots  who,  surrounded  by  our 
enemies,  and  the  enemies  of  our  common 
country— have  dared  to  say  that  they  will  never 
lend  their  aid  to  the  General  Government  to 
coerce  a  Southern  State — is  Missouri  to  take  a 
position  lower  than  that?  Never!  I  believe  it 
to  be  the  duty  of  Missouri  to  stand  by  the  gal- 
lant men  of  Southern  Illinois,  who  have  passed 
resolutions  that  they  will  never  suffer  a  Northern 
army  to  pass  the  southern  boundary  of  Illinois 
for  the  purpose  of  invading  a  Southern  State.  I 
believe  it  to  be  the  duty  of  Missouri  to  come  to 
the  rescue  of,  and  back  up  such  men  as  the  gal- 
lant Stockton  of  New  Jersey,  who  has  had  the 
daring  courage  to  plant  himself  upon  a  like  plat- 
form. When  I  go  home  to  my  constitu- 
ents— when  I  go  home  to  meet  the  se- 
cessionists, I  want  to  go  with  a  weapon  in  my 
hand  with  which  I  can  conquer,  and  lead  the 
Union  men  on  to  triumph  at  the  polls,  when  they 
come  to  indorse  what  this  Convention  has  done. 
But,  gentlemen,  if  you  send  me  there  empty- 
handed — if  you  send  me  there  with  a  document 
like  that  which  has  been  given  to  us  by  President 
Lincoln,  about  which  there  are  forty  different 
opinions,  and  leave  it  for  an  argument — a  learned 
and  ingenious  argument — to  settle  its  meaning,  I 
tell  you  that  our  defeat  will  be  certain,  when  we 
come  to  submit  our  doings  to  the  people  of  Mis- 
souri. 

But,  gentlemen,  it  is  not  from  motives  of  this 
sort,  entirely,  that  I  have  introduced  this  amend- 
ment; but  because  I  conscientiously  believe 
that  it  is  demanded.  It  does  not  pledge 
Missouri  to  go  out  of  the  Union— not  at  all. 
I  would  never  dream  of  such  a  resolution  as  that. 
I  do  not  believe  it  to  be  the  will  of  Missouri;  but 
I  believe  that  if  the  Union  is  to  be  preserved,  it 
cannot  be  preserved  by  the  sword,  but  by  a  peace- 
able adjustment  and  fair  and  equitable  compro- 
mises. And  occupying  that  position,  I  say  ir  is 
the  duty  of  this  Convention  to  plant  Missouri  be- 
tween these  two  warring  sections,  and  say  to 
each,  you  cannot  look  to  us  for  aid. 

That  is  my  position,  gentlemen,  in  regard  to 
that  point.  Now,  so  far  as  the  preamble  is  con- 
cerned, which  is  attached  to  the  resolutions  which 
have  been  presented  to  this  Convention,  I  suppose 


it  to  be  a  mere  introduction,  setting  forth  the 
reasons  which  have  actuated  the  committee  in 
submitting  the  resolutions,  and  not  subject  to 
any  vote  by  the  Convention.  I  hold  that 
whatever  may  be  our  opinion  in  regard  to  the 
preamble,  it  is  the  resolutions,  and  not  the  pre- 
amble that  we  are  to  act  on.  Taking  this  view,  I 
am  indisposed  to  meddle  with  that  preamble.  It 
is  a  fine  argument,  and  I  agree  with  the  senti- 
ments enunciated  therein,  as  great  truths.  I  have 
some  objections  to  the  way  in  which  they  are 
stated,  and  do  not  agree  to  some  of  the  particu- 
lars ;  but,  taking  it  as  a  whole,I  consider  it  a  master- 
ly exposition  of  the  present  state  of  affairs,  and 
history  of  the  commencement  and  growth  of  the 
troubles  now  upon  us ;  I  am  disinclined  to  inter- 
fere with  it  IB  any  Avay. 

Mr.  Gamble.  The  gentlemen  is  right  in  say- 
ing that  the  preamble  is  not  strictly  before  the 
Convention.  It  is  to  be  looked  upon  merely  as  an 
introduction  on  the  part  of  the  Committee  to  the 
resolutions  themselves. 

Mr.  Moss.  Then  I  am  correct  in  my  position, 
and  I  regard  the  statement  of  the  gentleman  who 
is  Chairman  of  the  Committee  as  a  further  evi- 
dence that  this  amendment  which  I  offered  is  not 
only  not  in  conflict  with  the  report  of  the  Com- 
mittee, but  in  entire  harmony  with  it.  So  much 
upon  that  point. 

While  I  am  up,  gentlemen  of  the  Convention, 
although  perhaps  it  may  not  be  strictly  in  order, 
yet  I  will  briefly  give  my  views  in  regard  to  this 
whole  question.  I  do  not  know  but  what  it  is  in 
order  for  me  to  do  so.  The  majority  report  is 
now  before  the  Convention,  and  I  may  be  in- 
dulged in  making  my  remarks,  taking  a  wider 
range  than  is  strictly  included  in  my  amendment. 
I  will  state  that  I  have  another  amendment, 
which  I  shall  offer  at  the  proper  time.  But  I 
will  undertake  to  discuss  it  now,  believing  it  to 
be  in  order. 

The  Chair.  The  gentleman  will  not  discuss  a 
resolution  which  has  not  been  read  by  the  Sec- 
retary. 

Mr.  Moss.  Well,  I  will  not  say  anything  about 
this  amendment  at  present,  but  confine  myself  to 
the  majority  report.  I  agree  with  the  position 
taken  in  that  report— the  position  taken  by  my 
worthy  friend  who  is  before  me,  as  the  Chairman 
of  the  Committee.  I  believe,  gentlemen,  that  the 
hopes  of  the  people  of  Missouri— yea,  of  the 
Union,  of  the  Border  States  as  well  as  of  the 
Northern  States— I  say,  I  believe  that  their  only 
hope  of  salvation  now  is  with  the  people;  and  the 
sooner  we  go  to  them  the  better.  And  for  that 
reason  I  am  opposed  to  all  preliminary  proceed- 
ings by  bodies  of  men  whose  work,  when  it  is 
finished,  amounts  to  nothing.  I  tell  you  the  peo- 
ple have  got  tired  of  such  things.  They  are  sick, 
and  they  want  a  physician  who  can  heal  them. 


70 


They  do  not  want  to  be  compelled  to  swallow  any 
more  quack  medicine. 

It  is  urged  by  some  of  the  friends  of  the  Bor- 
der State  propositions,  that  it  would  be  advanta- 
geous to  decline,  for  the  present,  holding  a  Na- 
tional Convention.  And  why?  They  say,  in  order 
that  we  might  present  an  unbroken  front.  They 
say,  fix  upon  an  ultimatum.  Well,  now,  gentle- 
men, I  disagree  with  my  friends  in  that  respect. 
I  disagree  with  them  for  this  reason :  if  I  am 
dealing  with  an  enemy— and  for  the  sake  of  il- 
lustration, I  will  call  those  gentlemen  who  are 
advocating  "  irrepressible  conflict"  our  enemies 
— and  I  propose  to  him  to  compromise,  and  I 
have  four  or  five  different  plans  of  compromise; 
then,  if  I  see  that  he  indicates  that  he  is  in 
favor  of  a  certain  one  of  these  plans,  and  that 
plan  suits  me  to  the  letter,  I  believe  that  good 
policy  is  to  meet  him  at  once,  and  not 
waste  my  time  discussing  the  advantages  of  the 
other  propositions.  If  I  see  that  he  will  give  me 
all  that  I  ask,  then,  gentlemen,  I  feel  it  to  be  my 
duty  as  well  as  my  interest,  and  the  dictates  of 
common  sense,  to  accede  to  it  at  once.  Now,  how 
do  we  stand  in  regard  to  this  ?  Missouri  says  that 
she  proposes  the  Crittenden  resolutions  as  the 
proper  basis  for  a  settlement  of  the  question.  Do 
you  doubt,  that  the  Border  States  all  indorse  that 
proposition  ?  I  presume  not.  How  is  it  in  the 
North  ?  Why,  the  Crittenden  resolutions  stand 
without  a  rival.  Look  at  the  memorials  and 
petitions  that  have  flooded  our  National  Legis- 
lature. What  object  have  they  been  presented 
for?  Look  at  the  14,000  names  from  the  city  of 
Boston  praying  for  the  adoption  of  those  reso 
rations. 

Now,  my  idea  of  the  policy  of  Missouri  is  this : 
lead  out  in  this  great  conciliatory  movement. 
Tell  your  brothers  of  the  Border  States  that,  be- 
lieving that  a  majority  of  the  citizens  of  the  Uni- 
ted States  are  agreed  that  the  Crittenden  resolu- 
tions present  a  fair  and  equitable  basis  of  settle- 
ment, Missouri  plants  herself  upon  that  position, 
and  calls  upon  the  Border  States  to  follow  her. 
There  is  no  doubt  but  the  Northern  States  can  be 
made  to  accede  to  them ;  and  I  tell  you,  gentle- 
men, we  will  go  into  that  National  Convention 
with  four-fifths  of  her  delegates  instructed  to  oc- 
cupy them  as  a  basis.  That  is  what  we  will 
do,  and  we  will  do  it  without  holding  a 
Border  State  Convention;  and  I  believe, 
honestly,  we  will  reach  that  point  more  success- 
fully by  Missouri's  taking  this  ground  right  at 
the  start,  as  she  has  a  right  to  do,  and  determin- 
ing that  she  is  not  goiag  to  hold  any  further  con- 
sultation with  sister  States  except  in  National 
Convention,  and  that  she  will  instruct  her  dele- 
gates to  the  National  Convention  to  stand  upon 
that  platform,  and  will  call  upon  her  sister 
Border  States  to  do  likewise.  Then,  gentlemen, 
I  b-'licve  we  will  go  into  a  National  Convention— 


I  mean  the  friends  of  compromise — I  mean  the 
delegates  that  come  from  the  people,  from  whom 
we  look  for  salvation,  will  go  there  as  a  unit, 
and  I  believe  all  will  go  virtually  satisfied  with 
the  Crittenden  compromise. 

As  I  remarked  before,  the  impatient  people — 
they  are  in  the  habit  of  traveling  by  railroad, 
and  talking  by  telegraph,  and  they  wish  to  see 
the  great  difficulty  we  have  to  contend  with  settled 
with  dispatch.  They  are  impatient.  They  have 
forgotten  that  it  took  eight  long  years  of  blood- 
shed, and  suffering,  and  trial,  to  build  up  this 
magnificent  edifice;  and  now,  because  they  can- 
not stay  its  tottering  walls,  and  re-instate  it  upon 
its  ancient  foundations  in  an  hour,  they  get  im- 
patient and  cry  out  for  revolution.  Gentlemen, 
the  sooner  we  can  get  to  the  people  the  better. 

If  I  thought  that  in  advocating  a  National 
Convention,  I  should  be  instrumental  in  bring- 
ing about  a  conflict  between  delegates  from  the 
Border  States  and  from  Northern  States,  I  would 
have  different  views  about  the  matter.  I  should 
not  advocate  it;  but  I  believe  our  delegates  will 
go  there,  and  the  Northern  delegates  will  go 
there,  and  a  great  majority  of  all  will  be  instruct- 
ed to  vote  forthe  Crittenden  resolutions. 

Although  it  may  be  a  little  tiresome  for  me  now 
to  discuss  the  merits  of  the  Crittenden  resolutions, 
much  as  they  have  been  discussed,  yet  I  hope  I 
shall  be  indulged,  for  this  reason :  that  we  have 
these  battles  to  fight  over  again  with  the  people; 
and  I  know  the  skill  and  ingenuity  and  masterly 
management  of  our  enemies  in  Missouri;  (when  I 
say  our  enemies,  I  mean  the  secessionists  per  se, 
these  gentlemen  who  think  that  Missouri's  salva- 
tion depends  upon  going  out  now.  I  want  the 
people  of  Missouri  to  understand  the  force  of  our 
position  here.  I  know  it  will  be  contended  by 
our  enemies,  when  we  have  passed  these  resolu- 
tions, that  we  have  done  nothing— that  what  we 
have  done  amounts  to  nothing — and  that  Mis- 
souri has  taken  no  position  whatever;  that  we 
are  submissionists,  and  all  that  sort  of  thing; 
and,  recollecting  these  facts,  recollecting  the  his- 
tory of  the  canvass,  and  the  fight  made  hereto- 
fore, I  think  it  not  inappropriate,  in  this  connec- 
tion, in  a  short  way,  to  speak  of  the  peculiar 
merits  of  the  Crittenden  resolutions  as  the  basis 
of  settlement. 

In  order  to  appreciate  these  merits,  let  us  ask 
ourselves,  in  the  first  place,  what  are  we  seeking 
to  remedy?  What  is  it  that  has  terrified  the 
South  in  regard  to  the  danger  of  her  institutions? 
Is  it  the  mere  squabble  about  the  Territories  ? 
Far  from  it.  It  is  the  announcement  of  the 
celebrated  doctrine  that  Mr.  Lincoln  claims  to 
be  the  father  of  the  "irrepressible  conflict." 
I  know  that  Republicans  interpret  that  one  way, 
but  the  South— the  men  of  the  South— the 
men  of  the  slave  States— all  interpret  it  another 
way,  and  I  think  their  interpretation  is  right. 


71 


How  do  they  interpret  it?  They  interpret  it, 
gentlemen,  to  mean,  not  oul)T  the  exclusion  of 
Southern  men  from  the  Territories,  and  the 
hedging  in  of  slavery  with  a  wall  of  fire,  as  has 
been  remarked  by  some  other  gentleman.  They 
may  be  wrong  in  this  interpretation;  but  whether 
it  be  right  or  wrong,  the  general  opinion  enter- 
tained in  the  South  is,  that  it  means  eternal  and 
unceasing  warfare  upon  the  institution,  and  that, 
whilst  the  Republican  party  now,  under  our 
present  Constitution,  acknowledge  that  Congress 
has  no  power  to  invade  a  Southern  State  by 
legislation  for  the  purpose  of  interfering 
with  the  institutions  in  the  States,  yet,  when 
in  some  future  time  they  have  acquired 
sufficient  strength,  they  will  institute  such 
interference.  Whether  that  idea  be  erro- 
roneous  or  correct,  is  a  matter  I  do  not  propose 
to  investigate.  Suffice  it  to  say,  that  the  great 
object  in  the  outset  of  this  conciliatory  movement, 
is  to  give  the  Southern  mind  peace  upon  this 
great  question.  It  is  to  satisfy  them  that  they 
need  no  longer  look  with  anxiety  and  dread  to 
their  Northern  brethren. 

Now,  let  us  see  whether  the  Crittenden  resolu- 
tions reach  that  point.  How  doss  Mr.  Critten- 
den propose  to  remedy  the  evil  ?  How  does  he 
propose  to  give  peace  and  safety  to  the  South  ? 
He  says  we  will  amend  the  Constitution  in  a  cer- 
tain way,  so  as  to  deprive  Congress  of  the  power 
ever  to  interfere  with  the  question  of  slavery  in  a 
State;  and  for  a  further  guarantee,  we  will  make 
that  provision  in  the  Constitution  like  a  law  of 
the  Medes  and  Persians,  unalterable. 

Gentlemen,  if  there  be  any  in  this  Conven- 
tion, who  are  secessionists,  (and  I  hope  there 
are  none;)  if  there  is  a  man  here  with  a  true 
Southern  heart  in  his  bosom,  who  is  honest  and 
candid,  I  ask  whether  he  would  propose  to  offer 
amendment  to  that  ?  Could  we  ask  for  a  stronger 
guarantee  than  the  one  contained  in  the  Critten- 
den resolutions  reaching  to  that  point  ?  I  believe, 
gentlemen,  that  no  other  statesman  has'offered  an 
amendment  to  the  Constitution  that  suits  the  peo- 
ple of  the  South  better.  We  think  it  is  as  strong 
an  amendment  as  we  can  get. 

What  is  the  next  point?  The  next  point,  gen- 
tlemen, is  to  give  protection  to  the  four  thousand 
millions  of  slave  property  in  the  States.  You 
may  talk  about  principles,  your  Territorial  ques- 
tions, the  theory  of  the  Government,  and  all  that 
sort  of  thing,  but  I  tell  you  the  men  who  have 
labored  for  a  lifetime  to  build  up  a  little 
fortune,  and  have  got  half  of  it  in  slave  prop- 
erty, will  not  rest  satisfied  for  a  moment 
without  sufficient  guarantees  that  they  can  lie 
down  at  night  and  sleep  quietly  and  in  safety, 
and  know  that  no  robber  dare  break  in  and  take 
their  property  from  them.  They  want  protec- 
tion for  the  four  thousand  millions  of  dollars  of 
slave  property.    Now,  how  does  Mr.  Crittenden 


propose  to  reach  that  point?  Is  there  any  im- 
provement which  has  ever  been  suggested  upon 
his  plan  ?  What  does  he  propose  to  do  ?  Gen- 
tlemen, you  are  aware  that  we  have  upon  our 
statute  book,  passed  by  our  National  Legislature, 
the  Fugitive  Slave  Law.  What  has  been  the 
trouble  in  the  South  ?  It  was,  that  when  a  South- 
ern man  undertook  to  pursue  a  slave  into  a  free 
State  a  mob  would  arise  and  take  his  property  from 
him,  and  he  had  no  remedy — he  was  powerless. 
That  needs  rectifying.  We  need  a  stronger  guar- 
antee in  regard  to  that  point  than  we  have  had 
heretofore.  How  are  we  to  get  it?  Mr.  Critten- 
den proposes  that  the  General  Government  shall 
come  in  with  her  strong  arm  and  deal  with  the 
Northern  robber  who  dares  to  violate  the  law. 
He  does  not  leave  the  individual  to  struggle  with 
the  law;  but  he  proposes  that  the  General  Gov- 
ernment should  pay  the  value  of  the  stolen  prop- 
erty to  the  owner,  and  that  she  shall  undertake 
to  deal  with  the  offender  according  to  his  deserts. 

Men  of  Missouri — slave  holders — can  you  sug- 
gest an  improvement  on  that?  I  believe  none 
has  ever  been  suggested  that  was  more  satisfacto- 
ry to  the  South  than  that. 

Then,  gentlemen  of  the  Convention,  the  two 
great  points  are  now  disposed  of.  Peace  and  qui- 
et are  restored  to  the  South.  They  no  longer  look 
upon  their  Northern  brethren  as  enemies,  because 
they  have  not  the  power  to  do  them  injury. 

All  those  startling  fears  upon  which  artful  and 
designing  men  worked  in  order  to  cany  them- 
selves into  power,  without  reference  to  the 
effect  that  it  is  to  have  upon  the  nation,  and 
which  have  in  a  great  measure  led  us  to  our  present 
unfortunate  condition,  they  are  rid  of.  We  put 
an  impassible  barrier  between  the  enemies  of 
slavery  and  the  owners  of  slave  property  in  the 
States.  We  deprive  the  Abolitionist  of  the  power 
ever  to  alter  the  American  Constitution,  so  as  to 
give  Congress  the  power  to  invade  a  Southern 
State  by  legislation ;  and  we  give  full  and  ample 
protection  to  the  four  thousand  millions  of  dol- 
lars worth  of  property  in  the  States. 

Well,  those  two  material  points  are  satisfacto- 
rily disposed  of.  The  next  question,  and,  gentle- 
men, the  only  question  remaining  to  be  consid- 
ered (for  I  believe  that  the  people  of  the  North 
agree  that  we  are  entitled,  under  the  Constitution, 
to  all  those  guarantees  and  to  all  the  protection 
that  we  ask,  so  far  as  slavery  is  concerned  in  the 
States,)  is  that  of  the  Territories.  Well,  what  of 
the  Territories  ?  It  is  unnecessary  for  me  to  ar- 
gue this  question  at  length  before  this  Conven- 
tion; but,  gentlemen,  as  that  is  the  point  upon 
which  our  enemies  hang  the  fate  of  Missouri,  I 
will  argue  it.  That  is  the  great  weapon  ot  war 
in  the  hands  of  our  enemies.  They  say  all  is  very 
well  about  the  States,  but  the  danger  lies  in  the 
Territories.  Well,  now,  this  is  not  a  question 
entirely  of  principle,  but  a  question  of  fact — a 


72 


question  of  practicability.  You  go  on  to 
demonstrate  to  them  that  the  God  of  Nature 
has  put  his  veto  on  the  introduction  of 
slavery  north  of  36  degrees  30  minutes.  Yet 
they  will  argue  with  you  a  day,  and  say  they 
don't  care  whether  that  is  true  or  false — 
whether  the  laws  of  nature  have  placed  impas- 
sable barriers  between  them  and  that  Territory 
or  not;  they  will  maintain  that  the  abstract 
principle  is  right,  and  that  there  should  be  no  con- 
cession upon  that  point.  They  say  the  Revolution 
was  fought  on  a  preamble,  and  they  talk  about  a 
principle.  Well,  I  apprehend,  whenever  the  people 
can  understand  this  principle  in  a  practical  light, 
they  will  make  but  poor  headway  with  that  prin- 
ciple. They  insist  that  they  have  the  right  of 
going  into  any  Territory  and  occupying  every 
foot  of  ground  that  the  God  of  Nature  will  allow 
them  to  occupy,  and  that  they  are  not  willing  to 
abandon  that  right  in  any  instance  whatever. 
That  is  the  argument  of  the  secessionists. 

Well,  what  does  that  amount  to  ?  it  amounts  to 
just  this— our  Northern  brethren  now,  and  I  be- 
lieve it  sincerely,  will  give  us  the  Crittenden  Re- 
solutions whenever  we  can  get  at  the  sense  of 
the  people  in  a  National  Convention;  they  will 
give  us  guarantees  for  the  protection  of  slavery 
in  the  States ;  they  will  give  us  this  impassable 
barrier  to  prevent  men,  hereafter,  from  carrying 
the  war  into  Africa ;  they  will  give  us  protection 
for  everjT  foot  of  territory  where  you  can  take 
slavery  according  to  the  laws  of  Nature;  but  the 
Secessionists  say  we  will  surrender  all  these 
guarantees  offered  us,  and  for  what?  for  the 
sake  of  asserting  an  abstract  principle  that 
is  barren— a  right  that  is  a  barren  abstraction— 
and  they  say  further,  that  they  consider  this 
compromise  altogether  on  one  side,  that  we  give 
up  every  thins,  and  that  we  get  nothing.— 
Why,  gentlemen,  is  that  the  manner  in  which 
the  thing  suggests  itself  to  you;  and  right  here, 
at  the  risk  of  being— as  I  remarked  before— a  lit- 
tle tedious,  I  will  go  slightly  into  the  past  political 
history  of  our  country  on  the  subject  of  slavery, 
and  shall  take,  to  some  extent,  the  same  line  of 
argument  pursued  a  day  or  two  since  by  the  gen- 
tleman from  Clinton— Judge  Birch.  Let  us  look 
to  the  national  legislation  of  the  past,  and 
see  whether  or  not  this  is  not  a  compromise 
we  are  getting.  It  will  be  remembered, 
and  I  will  pass  very  rapidly  over  the  history, 
that  in  1820,  Missouri  sought  to  come  in  as  a 
slave  State  but  was  opposed,  but  at  last  she  did 
come  in  with  her  magnificent  domain.  Time 
rolled  on,  and  Texas  with  her  magnificent  em- 
pire sought  to  come  into  the  Union.  It  was  still 
opposed  by  men  of  the  North,  with  the  exception 
of  those  of  our  Northern  friends  who  have  al- 
ways been  willing  to  stand  by  our  Constitutional 
rights,  and  they  agreed  to  admit  her.  How? 
Texas  has  a  territory  of  three  hundred  millions  of 


acres  of  land.  And  what  were  the  conditions 
prescribed  by  Texas?  They  were  that  she 
should  be  admitted  with  the  right  to  divide  her 
territory  into  four  great  States,  and  she  has  the 
right  to-day  if  she  is  not  out  of  the  Union. 
It  was  a  part  of  the  contract,  as  you 
will  observe  by  reading  the  proceedings  of  Con- 
gress in  1845,  and  further,  by  reading  Webster's 
great  speech  on  the  compromise  measures  of 
1850,  where  he  takes  that  ground  and  says: 
"Texas  to-day  has  the  right  to  divide  her  mag- 
nificent Territory  into  four  slave  States,  and  that 
it  is  a  part  of  the  contract  under  which  she  was 
admitted."  Well,  gentlemen,  time  rolled  on,  and 
New  Mexico  and  California  sought  to  come  in. 
The  same  enemies  in  the  Northern  States  attempt- 
ed to  prevent  the  admission  of  those  Territories, 
and  what  then  took  place?  Why,  the  immortal 
Clay  came  fortward  and  offered  a  resolution  which 
embodied  the  celebrated  doctrine  of  non-interven- 
tion, by  means  of  which  men  of  the  slave  States, 
with  their  property, could  go  into  those  territories 
and  stand  side  by  side  the  men  of  the  free  States. 
By  and  by  our  Southern  brethren  said  to  the 
North,  this  will  not  satisfy  us.  Your  citizens 
have  been  encroaching  Upon  us,  and  making  war 
upon  our  institutions,  and  robbing  us  of  our  pro- 
perty, and  we  have  no  remedy.  Give  us  the  Fu- 
gitive Slave  law.  They  did  so.  And  while  a 
Northern  man  was  in  the  Presidential  chair  they 
executed  that  law.  That  was  not  all.  Time 
rolled  on  again,  and  in  1854,  when  Kansas  and 
Nebraska  sought  to  come  in,  what  was  done 
then  ?  Our  Southern  brethren  said  this  celebra- 
ted doctrine  which  was  enunciated  in  the  com- 
promise measures  of  1850,  the  doctrine  of  non-. 
intervention,  is  cramped  and  trammeled  in 
its  full  operation  on  account  of  the  old  Mis- 
souri Compromise,  and  we  now  ask  you  to 
do  what  by  right  and  justice  you  should  do 
to  us.  We  ask  you  to  remove  the  old  Mis- 
souri restriction  and  give  the  people  of 
the  South  the  right  to  go  into  the  common 
territory  and  say  what  institutions  they  shall 
have.  Did  they  refuse?  No,  they  gave 
it  to  us.  What  was  done  then?  It  was  then 
sought  to  take  the  power  of  legislating  on  this 
subject  of  slavery  in  the  Territories,  as  I 
before  remarked,  out  of  the  hands  of  Congress. 
Our  Southern  brethren  said :  Take  this  away  from 
Congress,  and  give  us  all  a  fair  opportunity- 
Kentucky,  Louisiana  and  Arkansas — and  give  us 
an  opportunity  to  go  there  and  take  an  equal 
chance  with  our  Northern  brethren,  and  let  the 
people  decide.  We  did  go  into  Kansas  Territory 
and  passed  laws  for  the  protection  of  the  slave, 
as  we  did  in  New  Mexico,  and  which  now 
stands  on  our  statute  book.  That  is  the  way 
the  thing  stands.  I  am  now  reciting  this  history 
for  the  purpose  of  showing  that  this  is  a  compro- 
mise.   I  understand  a  compromise  to  mean  a 


73 


yielding  up  on  the  part  of  both  sides.  Now,  all 
this  was  right.  I  do  not  claim  that  the  North 
has  given  us  anything  that  we  are  not  entitled 
to;  but  this  Kansas-Nebraska  bill  was  given  to 
us  upon  our  solicitation,  and  upon  that  platform 
we  elected  James  Buchanan,  a  sworn  friend  of 
the  South,  by  an  overwhelming  majority,  and 
the  astonishing  spectacle  is  now  presented  that 
notwithstanding  all  this  seven  of  our  Southern 
brethren  have  deserted  us  and  gone  out  of  the 
Union.  I  undertake  to  show  you  that  the  propo- 
sitions contained  in  the  Crittenden  resolutions  in 
reference  to  the  territory  are,  in  the  truest  sense 
of  the  word,  a  compromise,  and  I  think  I  can 
demonstrate  it.  We  have  asked  the  fugitive  slave 
law,  and  it  was  put  upon  our  statute  book.  We 
asked  that  the  power  to  regulate  slavery  in  the 
territories  be  given  to  the  people  from  Congress, 
and  what  do  we  find  ?  We  find  that  we  cannot 
be  protected  in  the  territories — that  the  arm  of 
the  territorial  legislature  is  too  weak — that  our 
Northern  enemies,  those  who  are  really  our 
Northern  enemies,  have  three  men  to  our  one, 
and  that  they  can  fill  the  territories  and  rob  us 
of  our  protection.  Now,  what  do  we  ask? 
We  ask  that  this  power  shall  be  placed 
back  in  Congress;  that  it  shall  once  more 
be  restored  to  the  General  Government  that 
she  by  her  strong  arm  shall  give  us  protection. 
Suppose  they  do  it,  don't  they  give  us  something? 
Don't  they  yield  us  something?  Certainly;  and, 
I  contend,  just  what  we  are  entitled  to.  We  now 
ask  that  we  shall  not  be  left  to  our  enemies  who 
get  the  power  in  the  Territories,  but  that  the 
Government  shall  come  to  our  rescue.  Suppose 
they  give  it  to  us,  is  it  nothing  ?  But  they  tell  us 
about  the  guarantees  they  gave  us  for  slavery  in 
the  States.  There  is  the  Fugitive  Slave  Law,  and 
all  you  can  ask.  We  are  not  responsible  for  its 
execution.  The  President  has  the  power  to  exe- 
cute it,  and  we  have  done  all  we  can.  We  say 
we  admit  that,  and  ask  you  to  do  more — to  give 
us  a  remedy  that  will  be  of  some  practical  utility 
to  us.  We  ask  you  to  let  us  go  into  this  Territory 
with  our  slave  property,  and  claim  protection  of 
the  General  Government.  I  do  not  know  what 
other  men's  ideas  of  compromise  are,  but  that 
fills  my  idea  exactly.  And  mind  you,  when 
I  say  all  this,  I  don't  mean  to  say  that 
they  yield  one  thing  that  we  are  not 
entitled  to.  We  are  entitled  to  it  all,  and 
we  should  take  it  in  the  spirit  of  compromise.  I 
have  deemed  it  proper,  gentlemen  of  the  Conven- 
tion, to  detain  you  thus  long  in  the  discussion  of 
my  views  in  regard  to  the  Crittenden  propositions. 
I  have  done  so  for  the  reasons  that  I  suggested 
at  the  outset,  that— 

The  Chair.  I  will  say  to  the  gentleman  that 
he  is  out  of  order  in  discussing  the  Crittenden 
Impositions,  and  has  been  to  my  full  knowledge, 
but  it  has  been  my  disposition  to  indulge  him, 


and  I  hope  the  Convention  will  indulge  him.  He 
has  cut  off  the  whole  merits  of  the  subject  by  of- 
fering an  amendment  to  a  particular  clause  in 
the  report.  There  being  no  objec  tion,  the  gentle- 
man will  have  leave  to  proceed. 

No  objection  was  made. 

Mr.  Moss.  I  thank  you,  gentlemen,  for  the  in- 
dulgence. I  was  aware  of  the  fact,  but  as  I  stated 
at  the  outset  that  I  did  not  contemplate  again  oc- 
cupying the  time  of  the  Convention,  I  desired  to 
say  what  I  thought  in  regard  to  the  whole  ques- 
tion. Now,  gentlemen,  as  I  remarked  in  the  out- 
set— 

[The  speaker  was  here  interrupted,  by  some  one 
in  the  audience  being  seized  with  a  fit.  After  the 
excitement  had  subsided  he  said:] 

Gentlemen  of  the  Convention,  I  take  the  posi- 
tion I  now  occupy  for  the  reason  that  I  have 
intimated:  I  have  faith  in  the  Northern 
people.  As  I  remarked  a  few  minutes  ago, 
and  as  my  worthy  friend  from  Clinton 
remarked,  we  have  never  sought  any  protection 
at  their  hands  that  they  did  not  grant,  and  when 
I  say  this,  I  do  not  mean  the  Abolitionists  of 
the  North ;  I  do  not  mean  the  men  who  avow  no 
compromise  and  hostility  to  the  institutions  of 
the  South,  but  I  mean  the  noble  patriots  who 
have  been  willing  to  stand  by  the  constitutional 
rights  of  the  South  in  all  times;  but  men  now  talk 
that  they  have  no  sympathy  with  Northern  men ; 
they  are  too  apt  to  class  all  Northern  men  alike; 
they  say  our  sympathies  are  altogether  with  the 
South.  Do  you  know,  gentlemen  of  the  Conven- 
tion, that  in  November,  1860,  there  was  a  quar- 
ter of  a  million  more  votes  polled  against 
Mr.  Lincoln  in  the  North  than  in  the 
South?  Are  these  noble  men  who  stand 
up  in  the  midst  of  your  enemies,  to  suffer  mar- 
tyrdom? Have  they  no  claims  on  your  sympa- 
thies ?  Have  you  no  hope  of  the  vindication  of 
your  rights,  and  of  obtaining  additional  guaran- 
tees from  those  noble  men  who  are  now  struggling 
for  you  in  the  free  States.  Turn  to  the  past  his- 
tory of  the  country,  to  which  I  have  referred,  and 
remember  that  you  have  a  stronger  army  fighting 
for  you  in  the  free  States,  than  you  have  in  the 
South.  Such  is  the  fact,  and  no  man 
can  deny  it.  Gentlemen  who  are  with- 
out hope,  and  who  have  no  confidence  in 
the  Northern  people.  I  ask  you  to  examine  the 
result  of  the  election  of  1860,  and  see  what  a  rev- 
olution you  have  got  to  produce.  Take  each 
State,  and  see  how  many  votes  you  have  got  to 
take  from  the  Repubbcan  party  to  add  to  the 
friends  of  your  Constitutional  Rights  party,  and 
see  what  a  revolution  you  have  got  to  work. 
Some  time  ago,  while  I  was  making  a  canvass  in 
my  District,  I  took  the  trouble  to  do  that;  and 
right  here  I  will  state  my  position  in  regard  to 
our  Southern  brethren  withdrawing  from  us.  I 
know  gentlemen  on    this  floor  will  say  it  is  no 


74 


use  now  to    talk  about  these  things;  but,  gentle- 
men, I  think  it  is.    I  think  it  is  proper  that  the 
people  of  Missouri  should  understand  this  ques-  | 
tion,  as  how  we  stand  and  why  we  stand  as  we  [ 
do.    Our  sisters  in  the  South,  without  consulta- 
tion with  us,  took  the  liberty  of  going  out  of  the   j 
Union  and  inaugurating  a  revolution,  and  left  us  , 
to  our  fate.  I  regret  that.   While  I  am  disposed  to 
complain  of  them  for  their  arbitrary  action,  yet   j 
I  am  not  disposed  to  abuse  them.    But  I  think  a    ; 
calm,  dignified  and  firm  action  of  the  people  of  ; 
Missouri  should  be  taken  in  regard  to  the  circum-  i 
stances    that   have    led     us     to     our   present 
troubles.    How  did  we  stand  upon  the  election 
of  Lincoln  ?    It  was  known  that  his  hands  were 
tied — that  Congress  was  with  us.      How  did  it 
stand  in  regard  to  adopting  constitutional  amend- 
ments ?    How  would  it  stand  to-day,  in  regard  to 
the  adoption  of  the  Crittenden  resolutions,  if  all 
our  wandering  sisters  had  staid  in  the  Union? 
Gentlemen,  I  believe  it  would  require  but  just 
eleven  free  States  to  give  us  a  constitutional  ma- 
jority to  adopt  amendments  to  the  Constitution. 
But  they  have  gone  out,  and  how  do  they  leave 
us  ?  They  leave  us  so  that  we  are  now  compelled  to 
get  fourte-n  of  the  Northern    States,  to    get  a 
majority  of  those  left,  and  a  still  larger   number 
to   get   three-fourths  of  the  original    States  in 
order  to  amend  the  Constitution.    But  look  at  the 
returns  of  the  November  election,  and  see  the 
revolution  necessary  to  be  made,  and  you  will  be 
astonished ;  for  you  will  remember  that  when  you 
take  from  the  Republican  side,  and  add  to  our 
side,  the  thing  counts  double.    You  will  perceive 
that  in  order  to  get  three-fourths  of  the  States, 
you  would  not  have  to  make  a  revolution  exceed- 
ing 10,000  votes  in  any  State,  except  Pennsylvania 
and  New  York.  Don't  you  believe  that  revolution 
has  already  taken  place?   I  do,  and  it  is  for  that 
reason  that  I  would    go  with  confidence   into 
a  National  Convention;  but  I  want  the  delegates 
to  that  Convention  to  come  from  the  people;  and 
I  intend  to  offer  a  resolution,  at  the  proper  time, 
reaching  that  point— that  we  ask  that  to  be  done, 
and  why?    Because  I  don't  want  to  go  through 
a  solemn  farce  like  that  which  was  enacted  a 
short  time  since  in  the  Peace  Congress.    I  have 
no  faith  in  delegates  sent  from  Abolition  Legisla- 
tures and  Governors,  who  go  to  meet  secession 
delegates  from  secession  Governors  and  Legisla- 
tures, [applause;]  and  I,  for  one,  have  never  staked 
my  hopes  of  salvation  in  the  hands  of  such  men. 
The  Chair.  The  Sergeant-at-Arms  will  attend 
to  his  duties,  and  will  clear  the  galleries,  if  there 
is  any  more  cheering. 

Mr.  Moss.  The  question  was  put  to  me  on 
every  stump,  by  every  Secessionist,  Will  you  not 
he  willing  to  go  out  if  this  Congress  fail?  No, 
gentlemen,  for  I  look  for  it  to  fail,  and,  as  a  dis- 
tinguished member  told  us  the  other  day,  North- 
ern men  came  there  with  the  idea  that  they  had 


to  sustain  the  Chicago  platform,  without  refer- 
ence to  any  other  question.  I  am  opposed  to 
Missouri  going  into  a  Convention  composed  of 
delegates  that  shall  be  sent  by  any  Legislature 
now  in  existence.  But,  say  the  Secessionists,  your 
hands  are  tied;  these  Legislatures  that  are  now 
in  existence  won't  send  delegates  to  a  National 
Convention.  What  are  you  going  to  do  ?  Are 
you  going  to  wait?  Certainly  I  am.  It  took 
eight  long  years  of  blood  and  suffering  to  build 
this  Government  up,  and  I  think  it  is  worth 
twelve  months  delay  or  two  years  or  five  years  to 
preserve  it.  And  if  thece  Legislatures  refuse  to 
send  delegates  there,  and  refuse  to  subm  t  this 
question  to  the  people ;  if  members  of  Congress 
refuse  to  do  their  duty  and  refuse  to  give  the  peo- 
ple what  is  right,  I  am  in  favor  of  waiting;  but 
I  don't  want  Missouri  to  go  out.  I  want  her  to 
wait  until  she  can  reach  our  Northern  brethren 
at  the  ballot  box  Then,  when  they  turn  their 
backs  upon  us  and  say  they  are  no  longer  our 
brethren,  th  sn  there  will  be  time  enough  for  Mis- 
souri to  talk  about  going  out  of  the  Union.  I 
am  not  inclined  to  break  up  this  Government  be- 
cause a  few  unprincipled  politicians  have  got  into 
our  legislative  halls  by  swindling  the  people,  or 
because  they  refuse  to  give  us  our  rights.  I  will 
stay  in  it  until  we  can  reach  the  people,  and  never 
raise  my  voice  for  secession  until  our  Northern 
brethren  have  declared  at  the  ballot  box  that  they 
will  no  longer  live  with  us  as  brethren.  Then 
there  will  be  time  enough  for  Missouri  to  talk 
about  going  out. 

I  know  that  political  I  eaders  of  the  South  tell 
us  that  we  cannot  come  together  again,  and  my 
friends  ask  me  if  I  have  any  hope  ?  Yes,  I  have. 
I  have  faith  in  the  people  of  the  South,  but  I  have 
none  in  their  political  leaders.  I  have  faith 
in  the  people  of  the  North,  but  I  have  none 
in  their  political  leaders.  And  I  have  a  hope, 
it  may  be  a  sort  of  forlorn  hope,  a  bitter  hope, 
but  it  is  this,  that  if  these  peaceable  remedies  fail, 
that  at  last  the  people,  when  they  come  to  realize 
the  fact  that  they  have  been  trodden  upon  and 
oppressed  by  a  set  of  unprincipled  political  ty- 
rants, that  they  will  rise  up  and  trample  these 
men  down  and  upon  this  bloody  ground  plant  the 
old  national  banner.  This  is  my  hope.  I  look 
to  a  reconstruction  of  this  great  Republic. 

I  had  to-day  a  conversation  with  a  very  in- 
telligent gentleman  lately  from  the  South,  and 
a  gentleman  who  is  very  warm  in  his  attach- 
ment to  the  South,  and  he  stated  to  me  a 
fact  that  I  have  always  believed,  and  that  is 
that  a  large  majority  of  the  people  of  Louisiana, 
the  day  she  went  out  of  the  Union,  were  against  se- 
cession,and  I  tell  you,  men  of  the  border  States,  you 
form  the  great  backbone,  the  vertebral  column,  to 
which  are  attached  these  Northern  and  Southern 
ribs— some  of  which  have  been  broken  off,  but 
they  will  be  reunited,  I  trust,  despite  the  enemies 


75 


of  the  country  either  North  or  South.  I  tell  you, 
if  you  could  get  an  adjustment  of  this  question 
on  what  the  Crittenden  resolutions  propose,  we 
can  once  more  be  at  peace.  In  spite  of  the  agency 
of  Orr,  Jeff.  Davis  or  others,  there  will  be  found 
men  at  the  South  who  will  build  up  Union  par- 
ties that  Avill  revolutionize  the  South,  and  they 
will  come  back.  They  will  stand  out  just  as  long 
as  they  can  stand,  and  then  they  will  rise  up  and 
bury  their  oppressors.  God  grant  the  day  may 
soon  come ! 

Gentlemen,  a  reign  of  terror  is  prevailing  there. 
No  man  dare  open  his  lips  in  favor  of  the  Union, 
and  men  who  have  shed  their  blood  upon  the 
battle  field,  statesmen  who  have  contributed  em- 
pires to  our  Southern  States,  have  been  denounced 
in  the  South  as  traitors,  and  I  declare  my  blood 
ran  cold  when  I  read  the  denunciations  of 
those  noble  patriots.  Look  at  Sam  Houston— a 
man  who,  by  his  military  prowess  and  statesman 
ship,  has  added  to  the  Southern  galaxy  that  great 
empire,  Texas — Sam  Houston !  Look  at  the  trai- 
tor Wigfall— yea,  I  say  traitor — talking  about 
riding  Sam  Houston  on  a  rail,  and  running  him 
from  a  territory  that  he  gave  to  us  but  a  few 
years  since.  Sam  Houston !  a  man  who  has  shed 
more  patriotic  blood  on  Southern  soil,  and  in  de- 
fense of  Southern  territory  than  ever  flowed  in  the 
veins  of  all  the  traitor  Wigfalls  that  ever  lived. 
That  is  the  way  the  thing  stands  at  the  South. — 
Noble  men  and  patriots  are  denounced  because 
they  dare  to  love  the  Union.  I  tell  you  that 
reign  of  terror  must  have  an  end— it  has  had  an 
end  in  all  its  past  history.  The  history  of  the 
revolution  in  France,  and  of  the  world,  point  to 
a  certainty  that  a  revolution  will  overwhelm 
those  who  stand  between  the  people  and  what 
they  want.  Gentlemen,  I  have  occupied  your 
time  long  enough.  In  conclusion,  I  only  desire 
to  state  that  I  hail  from  a  county  where  Lincoln 
did  not  get  a  vote,  and  where  the  secessionists 
got  less  than  two  hundred.  My  constituents  are 
Union  men,  and  they  indorse  my  position,  and 
they  believe  that  all  Missouri  has  is  staked  on  the 
die — that  she  must  have  a  peaceful  settlement. — 
They  do  not  want  to  go  out  of  the  Union,  but 
they  ask  that  their  honor  shall  be  safe  in  your 
hands.  We  occupy  the  middle  ground,  and  we 
car  extend  to  both  sections  a  friendly  hand,  and 
say  we  want  peace,  and  our  salvation  depends 
upon  it.  I  hope  the  resolution  will  meet  with  a 
favorable  reception. 

Mr.  Doxnell  offered  an  amendment  to  the 
amendment,  which  being  declared  out  of  order 
he  withdrew,  for  the  purpose  of  offering  it  at  the 
proper  time. 

Mr.  Hall,  of  Randolph.  I  concur  in  most  of 
the  remarks  made  by  the  gentleman  from  Clay, 
(Mr.  Moss,)  but  I  am  opposed  to  that  resolution.  I 
do  not  believe  the  fate  of  Missouri  depends  upon 
the  question  of  coercion,  but  I  do  believe  that  the 


restoration  of  this  Union  may  be  brought  about, 
and  I  am  therefore  in  favor  of  the  resolution  re- 
ported by  the  Committee,  which  opposes  coercion 
on  the  ground  that  it  would  destroy  the  hope  of 
a  reconstruction.  I  do  not  believe  the  fate  of 
Missouri  is  dependent  upon  the  action  of  the 
States  out  of  the  Union,  nor  am  I  willing  to 
take  any  action  that  shall  tie  me  to 
their  fate.  They  have  selected  their  own 
course,  whatever  its  results  are  to  be  to  them,  and 
however  much  I  may  deplore  it — however  much 
I  may  desire  them  to  be  restored,  yet  the  course 
they  have  taken  I  am  not  prepared  to  take  for 
Missouri;  nor  will  I  take  a  position  which  will 
draw  me  into  the  path  which  they  have  taken 
The  gentleman  says  that  we  should  show  as 
much  spirit  in  resisting  coercion,  as  our  brethren 
of  the  North.  Threats  of  resistance  to  coercion 
coming  from  the  North,  have  a  good  effect,  but 
coming  from  the  South,  they  have  a  far  difffer- 
ent  effect.  Coming  from  the  North,  it  shows  they 
are  willing  to  assume  the  part  of  pacificators, 
but  coming  from  the  South,  it  comes  in  the  na- 
ture of  a  threat — and  we  have  had  too  much  of 
that.  If  the  Federal  Government  calls  upon  us 
we  must  discharge  our  duties  to  that  Govern- 
ment. Sir,  I  will  not  take  the  position  that  I 
am  in  a  Government,  and  yet  intend  to  resist  its 
laws.  I  think  it  is  not  the  proper  course  for 
this  Convention  to  declare,  this  sentiment,  what- 
ever they  may  think  the  action  of  Missouri  should 
be.  I  will  not  make  a  pledge  now  which  by 
a  possibility  can  be  construed  to  the  effect  that 
we  will  fight  for  those  who  have  placed  them- 
selves in  the  position  of  enemies  to  our  country. 
Suppose  there  is  a  Constitutional  demand  upon 
this  State,  and  an  attempt  to  enforce  it,  what  are 
we  to  do?  Are  we  to  resist,  and,  if  necessary,  by 
arms?  What,  then,  is  the  consequence?  Why 
we  declare  that  peace  is  essential,  and  yet,  for 
the  sake  of  peace,  inaugurate  civil  war — inau- 
gurate the  very  thing  we  attempt  to  avoid, 
and  we  ourselves  inaugurate  it  for  the  pur- 
pose of  avoiding  it — it  involves  a  practical  ab- 
surdity. Mr.  President,  it  would  produce  a  great 
excitement  throughout  the  Southern  States  if  co- 
ercion were  resorted  to.  Coercion,  in  the  sense 
in  which  it  was  understood  when  this  question 
first  began  to  be  talked  of,  is  a  different  thing 
from  what  it  means  now.  We  now  have  con- 
structive coercion.  We  now  hear  that  Maj.  An- 
derson's holding  on  to  Fort  Sumter  is  coercion,  and 
that  South  Carolina,  in  taking  Fort  Sumter,  is 
but  acting  in  self-defense,  is  but  resisting  coer- 
cion. Now,  if  I  do  not  mistake  the  feeling  of 
Missouri,  as  between  South  Carolina  and  Major 
Anderson,  the  sympathies  of  Missouri  are  in  fa- 
vor of  Major  Anderson;  and  I  will  make  no 
pledge  that  the  people  of  Missouri  will  take  up 
arms  to  resist  the  General  Government,  in  dcfend- 
idg  Major  Anderson  in  the  discharge  of  his  duty. 


76 


Mr.  President,  it  seems  to  me  that  this  resolu- 
tion is  at  variance  with  the  whole  scope  and  spirit 
of  the  resolutions  adopted  by  the  majority  of  the 
committee.  If  I  understand  the  scope  of  their  ar- 
gument it  is  this — that  we  are  not  to  resort  to  rev- 
olutionary remedies  so  long  as  we  have  a  means 
of  protecting  our  lights  within  the  limits  of  the 
law,  and  we  have  reason  to  believe  that  we  can 
have  our  rights  protected  within  the  limits  of  the 
law,  and  therefore  there  is  no  cause  for  revo- 
lutionary action  at  this  time.  That  is  the  spirit 
of  the  resolutions  reported  by  the  majority  com- 
mittee— that  we  recommend  subordination  and 
the  noble  spirit  of  submission  to  the  laws. 
•But  as  I  understand  it  in  the  resolution  now 
before  the  Convention,  we  pledge  ourselves  to 
insubordination, — we  place  ourselves  on  ground 
which  is  wholly  at  variance  with  the  spirit  of 
the  majority  report.  In  that  report  I  believe  we 
take  the  only  tenable  ground  that  can  be  taken; 
that  revolution  should  never  be  resorted  to  while 
there  are  means  of  preserving  our  rights  in  the 
Union.  We  have  taken  the  ground  and  set  the 
example,  and  I  want  to  see  no  resolution  in- 
troduced at  all  at  variance  with  that  or 
which  is  calculated  to  set  the  States 
example  of  insubordination.  We  take  the  high 
ground  of  mediators,  and  place  ourselves  on 
the  impregnable  basis  of  maintaining  our  le- 
gal rights  by  legal  means  while  these  legal 
means  exist.  I  say  our  position  as  mediators 
depends  upon  the  position  we  occupy  before  the 
country.  If  we  occupy  the  position  of  threaten- 
ing insubordination,  it  will  weaken  the  moral  in- 
fluence which  we  shall  exert  in  that  capacity. 
I  am,  therefore,  opposed  to  the  resolution. 

Mr.  Redd.  I  desire  to  say  a  word  or  two  on 
this  amendment.  If  I  understand  it,  it  is  this :  that 
Missouri  shall  not  furnish  troops  to  the  seceding 
States  nor  troops  to  the  General  Government.  I 
am  opposed  to  the  passage  of  that  amendment. 
I  am  opposed  to  it  because  I  do  not  believe  it 
speaks  the  voice  of  the  people  of  Missouri.  The  peo- 
ple of  Missouri  love  the  Union  as  much  as  any 
people  within  the  limits  of  this  Union,  and  while 
the  people  of  Missouri  are  willing  to  wait  for  the 
preservation  of  that  Union,  as  long  as  there  is  a 
reasonable  hope  that  it  can  be  preserved,  yet  I 
believe  the  people  of  Missouri  have  made  up 
their  minds  upon  the  subject  embraced  in 
that  resolution.  They  have  made  up 
their  minds,  not  as  the  gentleman  from 
Randolph  would  have  it,  that  they  would 
aid  the  General  Government  to  coerce  their  sis- 
ters of  the  South;  not  that  they  would  respond 
to  any  call  to  march  upon  Southern  soil  to  shed 
the  blood  of  Southern  men,  because  these 
Southern  men  have  been  driven  out  of  the 
Union  by  the  violation  of  their  Constitutional 
rights.  That  is  not,  in  my  judgment,  the  de- 
termination of  the  people  of  Missouri.      The 


gentlemen  says  we  have  an  adequate  remedy  by 
the  law.  Has  that  been  true  and  is  it  true? 
I  know  that  it  is  not.  If  we  had  an  adequate 
remedy  by  the  law  our  Union  would  not  have 
been  in  danger.  In  my  judgment  the  people 
have  made  up  their  mind,  and  they  have  made 
it  up  to  use  every  effort  to  preserve  the  Union 
in  every  way  in  which  it  can  be  preserved.  It 
cannot  be  preserved  by  coercion;  it  cannot  be 
pinned  together  by  bayonets;  it  cannot  be  ce> 
mented  by  blood;  it  can  be  preserved  only  in 
the  way  in  which  it  was  made  by  compromise 
and  concession1.  In  that  way  the  people  of 
Missouri  desire  and  will  labor  to  preserve 
it.  But  if  the  General  Government  fol- 
lowing out  the  course  indicated  by 
him  who  has  the  control  of  its  affairs — 
if  the  General  Government  attempts  to  send 
troops  upon  Southern  soil  to  retake  the  forts 
now  in  the  hands  of  those  States — to  retake 
the  Custom  House,  either  for  the  purpose  of  col- 
lecting the  revenue,  or  for  any  other  purpose — I 
say  if  the  General  Government  does  that,  the  Un- 
ion is  gone.  If  it  is  dissolved ;  c  re-construction 
is  impossible;  because  between  these  gaping  sec- 
tions there  will  be  a  gulf  of  blood.  In  my  judg- 
ment Missouri  has  made  up  her  mind,  and  her 
determination  is  that  if  the  General  Government 
will  not  wait  until  the  country  can  save  the  Un- 
ion by  concession  and  by  compromise,  her  deter- 
mination is  to  take  her  stand  by  the  side  of  her 
Southern  sisters;  having  failed  to  obtain  her 
rights ;  having  failed  to  have  any  guarantee  from 
that  great  anti-slavery  party  that  has  hitherto 
trampled  under  foot  the  Constitution;  having 
failed  to  obtain  this,  her  determination  is  to  take 
her  stand  out  of  the  Union— to  take  her  stand 
with  her  sister  border  States;  and  when  they  go, 
they  will  take  with  them  that  Constitution 
they  never  have  violated.  They  will  take 
with  them  that  glorious  banner  that  they 
have  baptised  in  the  blood  of  a  hundred 
battle  fields,  and  if  necessary,  under  its  broad 
folds  they  will  fight  for  their  rights  and  institu- 
tions as  their  fathers  fought,  until  the  last  drop 
of  blood  be  spilled.  In  my  judgment  that  is  the 
determination  of  the  people  of  Missouri.  It  is 
true,  it  is  not  the  determination  of  all,  for  Missou- 
ri has  within  her  broad  limits  thirty  thousand 
men  belonging  to  that  party  that  has  assailed  the 
Constitution.  If  they  are  to  control  her  destiny, 
if  she  is  to  remain  in  this  Union  at  the  sacrifice 
of  her  institutions  and  her  rights,  I  have  but  one 
thing  to  ask,  and  I  ask  it  as  a  matter  of  justice, 
that  she  change  the  device  of  her  coat  of  arms- 
remove  from  it  the  grizzly  bear,  for  its  rugged  na- 
ture was  never  animated  by  a  craven  spirit,  and 
substitute  in  its  place  the  fawning  spaniel,  cowing 
at  the  feet  of  its  master  and  licking  the  hand 
that  smites  it.  Missouri,  in  my  judgment,  will 
never  take  that   position.    I  know  the   people 


77 


of  Missouri.  .  I  know  the  Southern  men  of  Mis- 
souri, and  I  know  that  if  it  should  ever  arrive  at  ; 
that  period  when  she  has  struggled  for  her  rights,   ! 
when  she  Ins  tried  every  expedient  to  which  : 
hnoorable  men  can  resort  to  preserve  the  Union,  j 
our  institutions  and  our  rights  in    the  Union—  j 
after  she   has  done  that,  if  the  question  is  then  i 
presented  to  her  to  submit  to  have  the  Chicago  j 
platform  ami  the  dogmas    of   this    Republican 
party    substituted  in  the    place  of  the  national 
constitution,  to  submit  and  surrender  her  insti- 
tutions at  the  bidding  of  a  sectional  party  or  go 
out  of  this  Union— I  know  what  Missouri  will 
do,  and  the  heart  of  every  Southern  man  will 
tell  you  what  she  will  do,  that  is,  that  she  will  go 
out  of  the  Union.    To  one  construction    of  this 
amen  ImentI  I  have  no  objection.      I  have  not 
the     slightest    hesitation    in    saying    Missouri 
would   not  furnish    any   force  to  any  seceding 
State  to  make  war  upon  the  General  Government. 
She  would  do  no  such  thing;  and  I  have  no  hesi- 
tation in  saying  she  would  furnish  no  force  to  the 
General  Government  to  make  war  upon  the  sece- 
ding States.    I  have  no  hesitation  in  saying  that. 
If  that  be  the  extent  of  the  amendment  I  give  it 
my  hearty  approval^  but  if  it  goes  further,  as  I 
understand  it  to  go,  and  takes  the  high  ground, 
that  when  a  conflict  occurs  that  Missouri  will  be 
found  fighting  under  the  law  and  command  of 
Abraham  Lincoln,  then  I  cannot  go  for  any  such 
amendment,  because  Missouri  will  never  do  it. 

Mr.  Doniphan.  As  very  few  gentlemen  seem 
to  understand  the  amendment,  and  as  it  is  late 
in  the  evening,  I  move  that  the  House  adjourn 
till  to-morrow  morning,  so  that  the  resolution 
may  be  printed. 

Before  putting  the  motion,  the  Chair  laid  be- 
fore the  Convention  a  communication  from  the 
State  Auditor,  together  with  an  opinion  of  the 
Attorney  General,  to  the  effect  that  he  did  not 
feel  authorized  to  pay  out  any  money  to  meet  the 
expenses  of  the  Convention  unless  authorized  to 
do  so  by  special  act  of  the  Legislature. 

A  communieation  was  also  presented  from 
Chief  Engineer  Sexton,  inviting  the  Convention 
to  witness  a  display  of  the  steam  fire  engines. 

Adjourned. 


TENTH      DAY. 

St.  Louis,  March  12th,  1861. 

Convention  met  at  10  o'clock. 

President  Price  in  the  Chair. 

Prayer  was  offered  by  the  Chaplain . 

The  journal  was  read  and  approved. 

The  Chair  announced  the  further  considera- 
tion of  the  amendment  to  the  fifth  resolution,  in 
the  majority  report  of  the  Committee  on  Federal 
Relations,  offered  by  Mr.  Moss,  to  be  in  order. 


Mr.  Norton.  Mr.  President,  I  have  not  an- 
ticipated to  engage  in  any  discussion  which  has 
been  elicited  by  the  introduction  of  the  amend- 
ment offered  by  my  colleague  and  friend  from 
Clay.  Nor  do  I  now  propose,  in  the  remarks 
which  I  shall  offer,  to  depart  from  the  subject 
which  is  properlv  and  legitimately  before  this 
Convention,  for  its  consideration  and  determina- 
tion. I  came  here,  sir,  not  to  talk,  not  to  speak, 
but  to  represent,  in  part  at  least,  by  my  vote,  a 
constituency  as  loyal  to  the  Union  of  these  States, 
as  unwavering  in  their  patriotism,  as  devoted, 
sir,  to  the  peculiar  institution  of  the  slaveholding 
States,  as  any  constituency  represented  on  this 
floor. 

I  propose,  sir,  to  consider  first  the  original  res- 
olution to  which  the  proposition  of  my  friend  is 
offered  as  an  amendment,  to  enable  me  to  de- 
monstrate with  more  facility  and  clearness  the 
reasons  which  shall  operate  on  and  control  me  in 
my  vote  for  that  amendment. 

That  resolution,  sir,  enunciates  that  the  em- 
ployment of  military  forces  by  the  Federal  Gov- 
ernment to  coerce  the  submission  of  the  seceding 
States,  or  the  employment  of  military  forces  by 
the  seceding  States  in  assailing  the  Government 
of  the  United  States,  will  inevitably  plunge  the 
country  in  a  civil  war  and  entirely  extinguish  all 
hopes  of  an  amicable  adjustment  of  the  fearful 
issues  now  before  the  country.  Therefore,  we 
earnestly  entreat  as  well  the  Federal  Government 
as  the  seceding  States,  to  withhold  and  stay  the 
arm  of  military  force,  and  on  no  pretext  what 
eyer  to  bring  upon  the  country  the  horrors  of  civil 
war.  This,  sir,  is  the  resolution,  as  originally  re- 
ported by  the  Committee  on  Federal  Relations,  to 
which  now  there  is  pending  an  amendment.  It 
enunciates,  sir,  that  if  war  is  inaugurated  by  the 
Federal  Government,  or  inaugurated  by  the  se- 
ceding States  in  assailing  that  Government,  we 
are  plunged  in  civil  war,  and  that  all  hope  of 
peace  is  extinguished  and  forever  gone.  Sir,  to 
the  sentiment  enunciated  in  this  resolution  my 
mind  gives  its  most  hearty  and  cordial  assent. 

If  the  course  indicated  in  that  resolution  be 
pursued  either  by  the  Federal  Government  or  by 
the  seceding  States,  we  become  the  subjects  of 
two  of  the  greatest  calamities  that  can  ever  be- 
fall any  people  or  any  nation.  We  should  pre- 
sent, sir,  to  the  civilized  world,  the  spectacle  of  a 
people  with  the  freest  and  best  government  ever  or- 
ganized for  men,  pulling  it  down,  tearing  it  asun- 
der, breaking  it  up,  and  inaugurating  and  substi- 
tuting in  its  stead  wild  confusion,  anarchy  and 
misrule,  while  the  other  nations  of  the  globe,  op- 
pressed by  despotism,  aristocracies  and  monar- 
chies, are  attempting  to  pull  them  down,  and  es- 
tablish and  build  up  what  we  have  blindly,  ah! 
blindly,  gentlemen  of  the  Convention,  been 
throwing  away.  Yes,  sir,  blindly  throwing  away, 
by  inaugurating  civil  war,  and  lighting  up  its  red 


78 


flame,  and  causing  it  to  rage  like  a  tempest  of 
fire  from  one  end  of  this  confederacy  to  the  oth- 
er, desolating  the  land,  and  tinging  the  waters  of 
our  own  Missouri  and  of  the  mighty  Mississippi 
with  the  blood  of  our  countrymeu,  to  whom  we 
are  united  by  ties  of  a  common  country,  common 
kindred,  common  hopes  and  common  destiny. 

Mr.  President,  I  do  not  desire  to  live  to  see  that 
day.  I  do  not  desire,  sir,  to  live  to  see  the  time 
when  we  shall  become  denationalized,  unchris- 
tianized  and  uncivilized,  by  the  horrors  of  a  civil 
war;  nor  do  I  believe  that  there  is  a  single,  solita- 
ry gentleman  upon  this  floor,  nor  a  gentleman  in 
the  State,  who  would  desire  to  see  such  a  result. 
The  calamity  which  will  be  brought  upon  us  in 
consequence  of  the  inauguration  of  war  by  either 
section,  is  a  fearful  one,  and  the  dictates  of  pa- 
triotism require  us,  as  representatives  of  the  sov- 
ereigns of  Missouri  to  pursue  in  this  Convention 
such  a  course  as  will  best  prevent  that  fearful 
calamity  from  taking  place. 

Now,  sir,  the  next  sentiment  enunciated  by  this 
resolution  as  resulting  from  this  state  of  things  is 
this,  that  all  hope  of  a  peaceable  adjustment  of 
our  troubles  will  be  entirely  and  utterly  extin- 
guished if  this  state  of  affairs  should  come  upon 
the  country.  Why,  sir,  a  man  without  hope,  be- 
reft of  that  animating  principle  which  impels  him 
to  action,  with  the  future  before  him  dark  and 
dreary  and  blank,  full  of  nothing  but  wretched- 
ness and  woe,  would  be  an  object  for  the  exercise 
of  our  profoundest  pity  and  sympathy.  In  indi- 
vidual cases  such  a  condition  would  be  deplorable 
in  the  extreme ;  but  how  much  more  so  when  ap- 
plied to  a  nation.  A  nation,  sir,  without  hope, 
presents  a  spectacle  which  I  will  not  contemplate, 
and  a  picture  which  I  will  not  attempt  to  paint. 
How  much  more,  then,  does  this  hold  true  to  a 
nation  !  Sir,  we  are  told  in  this  resolution,  not 
only  that  hope  would  be  extinguished,  but  that  it 
would  be  entirely  extinguished;  and  not  only  that 
hope  would  be  extinguished  and  entirely  extin- 
guished, but  that  all  hope  would  be  entirely  ex- 
tinguished! I  believe  that  that  sentiment  is 
true — I  do  believe  that  all  hope  would  be  extin- 
guished. 

Now,  sir,  how  is  it  proposed  to  prevent  these 
two  great  calamities  from  falling  upon  us  ?  Why, 
sir,  Missouri,  with  a  larger  number  of  fighting 
men  within  her  borders  than  any  slaveholding 
State,  sends  out,  through  the  original  resolution, 
her  voice  of  entreaty  to  the  Federal  Government 
and  the  seceding  States,  asking  them  to  put  back 
their  swords  in  their  scabbards,  to  dismantle  their 
guns  and  keep  the  peace,  while  Missouri,  in  con- 
junction with  the  Border  slave  States,  will  at- 
tempt by  every  lawful  and  constitutional  means 
to  restore  the  Government  back  to  what  it  was  in 
temper  and  spirit  in  the  time  of  our  fathers,  who 
made  it.  This,  sir,  is  well,  and  I  believe  that  the 
voice  of  the  great  State  of  Missouri,  containing 


within  her  borders  one  hundred  and  twenty  thou- 
sand bold  and  valiant  soldiers,  ready  and  willing 
at  all  times  and  under  all  circumstances  to  do 
their  duty  in  the  cause  of  justice,  truth  and  right 
—I  believe,  sir,  that  such  a  voice  will  be  heard, 
especially  so  when  Kentucky,  the  mother  of  Mis- 
souri, and  Virginia,  her  grandmother,  have  added 
their  united  voices  to  the  sentiments  which  are 
expressed  in  these  resolutions.  It  is  a  step  in  the 
right  direction,  and  if  the  amendment  of  my  col- 
league had  any  degree  of  antagonism  in  it  to  the 
propositions  contained  in  the  fifth  resolution,  I 
should  feel  it  to  be  my  duty  to  oppose  its  adop- 
tion upon  this  floor.  If,  sir,  that  amendment  de- 
stroyed the  harmony  of  the  resolution,  marred 
its  beauty  or  destroyed  its  principles,  I,  sir,  would 
not  be  found  here  to-day  advocating  its  passage, 
but  would  be  found  in  my  place  asking  this  Con- 
vention to  vote  it  down. 

What,  sir,  does  it  propose  ?  It  proposes,  in  ad- 
dition to  entreating  for  peace,  to  send  it  out  as  an 
expression  of  the  opinion  of  this  Convention 
that,  if  our  Federal  head  and  the  seceding  States 
should  disregard,  spurn,  contemn  and  despise  the 
entreaty,  and,  like  the  war-horse,  rush  madly  and 
blindly  into  battle,  Missouri  would  not  be  engaged 
in  the  fight.  That,  sir,  is  the  sentiment — 
that  is  the  principle  which  I  understand  to 
be  enunciated  in  the  amendment.  That 
Missouri  would  not  be  found  in  that  contest 
either  with  her  men  or  her  money;  that  if  she 
were  in  that  contest,  it  would  be  as  a  pacificator 
endeavoring  to  part  the  combatants  and  put  out 
the  flame,  instead  of  adding  fuel  to  the  fire.  Gen- 
tlemen of  the  Convention,  do  you  not  believe 
that  that  is  the  sentiment  of  the  people  you  repre- 
sent on  this  floor?    I  do. 

I  now,  sir,  desire  to  draw  an  argument  in  sup- 
port of  the  passage  of  this  amendment  from  the 
Inaugural  Address  of  President  Lincoln.  In 
that  document  is  contained  the  following  lan- 
guage : 

"I,  therefore,  consider  that,  in  view  of  the 
Constitution  and  laws,  the  Union  is  not  broken, 
and  to  the  extent  I  am  able,  I  shall  take  care,  as 
the  Constitution  itself  expressly  enjoins,  that  the 
laws  of  the  Union  be  faithfully  executed  in  all 
the  States.  Doing  this  I  deem  to  be  only  a  sim- 
ple duty  on  my  part,  and  I  shall  perform  it  so  far 
as  practicable,  unless  my  rightful  masters,  the 
American  people  shall  withhold  the  requisite 
means,  or  in  some  authoritative  manner  direct 
the  contrary." 

Now,  sir,  I  deem  it  but  an  act  of  justice  on  my 
part  to  the  President  of  the  United  States,  here  to 
declare  in  my  place  that  I  do  not  regard  this  Inau- 
gural as  a  war  document.  While  it  may  proclaim 
in  principle  force,  it  disclaims  utterly  and  entirely 
in  my  humble  judgment  war  in  practice.  I  be- 
lieve, sir,  that  it  is  a  peace  document;  I  cannot 
say,  sir,  how  that  Executive  could  have  said  much 


79 


less  than  he  has  said  in  that  document.  In  the 
extrct  to  which  I  have  called  the  attention 
of  this  Convention,  there  is  a  plain  indication  on 
the  part  of  the  President,  inviting  an  expression 
from  the  people  of  the  United  States  in  regard  to 
the  polity  that  he  should  pursue  in  carrying  out 
the  theory  which  he  declares.  The  President  says 
that  he  will  deem  it  to  be  his  duty  to  execute  the 
laws  in  all  the  States  unless  the  requisite  means 
are  withheld  by  his  masters— the  American  peo- 
ple. Now  we  compose,  to  say  the  least  of  it,  Mr. 
President,  apart  of  the  American  people.  We 
have  a  right  to  speak  and  our  voice  ought  at  least 
to  be  heard  if  it  is  not  considered.  This  resolu- 
tion proposes  to  speak  to  the  President  of  the 
United  States  and  impart  to  him  this  information 
that  in  the  opinion  of  this  Convention,  if  he  does 
inaugurate  war,  Missouri  will,  so  far  she  is  con- 
cerned, withhold  the  requisite  means  to  carry  on 
that  war. 

I  believe,  sir,  waiving  the  question  which  was 
raised  yesterday  by  my  friend  from  Rando  lph, 
(Mr.    Hall,)    that   it     involves     or     implicates 
the  doctrine  of  nullification — waiving  that  ques- 
tion, I  state  here  in  my  place  as  a  question  of  fact, 
that  I  believe  that  resolution  announces  precisely 
what  will  be  the  result  in  the  event  of  this  war 
taking  place.    Another  reason,  sir,    and  to  my 
mind,  a  powerful  reason  for  the  adoption  of  the 
amendments  offered  by  my  friend,  is  found  in  the 
fact  that  in  the  Northern  States  there  is  a  large 
body   of     sound   and   conservative    men  who 
have   always   been   willing  to  discharge  every 
constitutional     obligation      which        has  been 
imposed    upon    them.        They    have     said  to 
us    in  many  of    their  State  conventions  that   if 
war  should  be  inaugurated  by  the  Government  of 
the  United  States  against  the  seceded  States,  that 
they  could  not  be  found  engaged  in  that  war, 
either  by  their  men  or  money.    Now,  sir,  if  these 
questions,  which  are  agitating  and  troubling  the 
country  are  ever  to  be  brought  to  a  solution,  we 
must  not  refuse  the  hand  which  these  gallant 
men  are  now  extending;  we  must  not  repel  them; 
we  must  do  nothing  upon  this  floor  that  would 
strike  these  gallant  men  down  and  place  them 
completely  and  utterly  in  the  power  of  their  foes. 
Vote  this  amendment  down  and  what  will  your 
friends  across  the  river  in  Illinois,  who  have  stood 
up  in  Convention  and  declared,  as  1  am  informed, 
and  believe,  sentiments  as  strong  as  those  uttered 
in  this  amendment;  how  would  that  vote  strike 
upon  the  ears  of  those  friends,  and  in  what  con- 
dition would  it  place  them?    Shall  they  be  told 
they  have  been  repudiated  by  Missouri,  certainly 
one  of  the  largest  States  in  the  Confederacy,  and 
more  deeply  interested  in  this  question  and  the 
preservation  of  peace,  than  any  other  slave  hold- 
ing State  in  the  Union?    I  am  opposed,  sir,  to 
placing  them  in  that  condition.    It  was  not  my 
design  sir,  nor  my  purpose,  to  proceed  in  this  de- 


bate without  limitation.  It  has  been  my  object  to 
confine  myself  strictly  to  the  proper  subject  before 
the  Convention.  I  think  I  have  done  so,  and  have 
given  the  reasons  which  induced  me  to  favor  this 
amendment,  I  do  not  like  the  wording  of  the 
amendment,  and  that  was  one  objection  urged  by 
my  friend  from  Randolph.  I  would  prefer  some 
slight  verbal  changes,  but  I  am  willing  to  waive  all 
these  trifling  objections,  and  expect  to  give  it  my 
vote. 

Mr.  Hall,  of  Buchanan.  I  indorse  most  cor- 
dially the  views  which  have  been  presented  by 
the  gentlemen  from  Platte  (Mr.  Norton)  and  also 
by  the  gentleman  from  Clay,  (Mr.  Moss,)  and  I 
trust  beiore  I  conclude  my  remarks  I  may  claim 
their  votes  against  this  amendment.  They  have 
told  the  Convention,  that  when  they  could  be 
made  to  believe  that  the  amendment  offered  by 
the  gentleman  from  Clay  was  in  conflict  with 
the  tenor,  purpose  and  spirit  of  the  report  of  the 
Committee  on  Federal  Relations  that  they  would 
be  the  first  to  vote  against  it.  I  claim,  and  de- 
mand that  they  shall  act  up  to  their  pledge. 
What  is  the  spirit  and  scope  and  meaning  of 
the  report  of  the  Committee  on  Federal  Rela- 
tions ?  It  is  that  in  the  opinion  of  that  Com- 
mittee we  should  undertake  to  take  care  of  the 
present.  It  is  that  we  should  pass  no  tensure 
on  the  past— that  we  shall  make  no  pledge  in  ref- 
erence to  the  future,  but  that  if  we  can  take  care 
of  the  difficulties  which  now  surround  us  it  will 
be  as  much  as  we  shall  be  able  to  accomplish. 
We,  therefore,  sir,  in  the  resolution  which  we 
have  had  the  honor  to  present  to  this  body,  have 
declared  what  the  gentleman  from  Clay  and  the 
gentleman  from  Platte  admit  to  be  true.  We  have 
declared  that  in  our  opinion  the  inauguration 
of  civil  war,  either  by  the  Federal  Government  or 
the  government  of  the  seceded  States,  would  be 
destructive  to  the  welfare  of  the  American  people, 
and  therefore  we  appeal,  therefore  we  entreat,  and 
therefore  we  demand  of  the  Federal  Government, 
and  the  State  governments,  that  they  shall  stay 
their  hands. 

Sir,  as  to  the  future  we  have  not  thought  pro- 
per to  speak;  we  know  not  what  circumstances 
may  surround  us  six  months  hence.  What  may 
be  proper  to-day,  may  be  improper  two  weeks 
hence.  We,  therefore,  have  said,  for  the  present 
and  under  existing  circumstances,  that  we  be- 
lieve our  duty  to  be  to  preserve  the  peace  of  the 
country.  The  motives  which  impelled  us  to  that 
conviction  are  manifest.  We  did  not  believe 
under  the  existing  circumstances  that  it  would  be 
possible  to  execute  the  laws  in  the  seceded  States. 
You  can  only  execute  the  laws  of  this 
country,  under  the  Constitution,  by  civil  process 
and  by  means  of  a  civil  tribunal.  All  the  armies 
you  can  march  on  earth  cannot,  under  the  Con- 
stitution, execute  the  laws  of  the  land.  If  you 
want  to  execute  the  laws  in  South  Carolina,  you 


80 


must  have  a  judge,  a  marshal,  and  a  grand  jury- 
to  indict,  and  a  petit  jury  to  convict.  And  while 
South  Carolina  is  in  her  present  condition,  you 
can  find  no  man  in  that  State  who  will  hold  civil 
office  under  the  Government;  you  can  find  no 
grand  jury  to  indict  men  for  violating  the  laws  of 
the  United  States;  nor  a  petit  jury  to  convict  men 
after  they  are  indicted.  And  therefore,  in  the 
opinion  of  your  Committee,  it  would  be  folly  to 
undertake  to  execute  the  laws  there.  The  Com- 
mittee believed  that  the  true  policy  was  to  con- 
ciliate the  people  of  those  States,  treat  them  with 
kindness,  yield  to  their  demands  if  necessary,  and 
restore  them  to  their  former  friendly  relations  to 
the  Federal  Government  if  possible;  and  then, 
and  not  till  then,  can  you  execute  the  laws  of  the 
United  States. 

And  there  is  another  consideration.  We  know, 
sir,  that  in  the  present  state  of  excitement,  any 
attempt  to  force  civil  officers  upon  the  seceding 
States  for  the  purpose  of  executing  the  laws, 
would  meet  with  opposition — and  not  merely 
from  the  seceded  States,  but  from  every  State  in 
the  Union  to  a  greater  or  less  degree.  The  very 
moment  a  hostile  gun  is  fired  in  the  seceding 
States,  you  will  have  civil  war  in  every  State  of 
the  Union,  and  destruction  to  the  Government 
and  to*  our  institutions  will  follow.  Believing  this, 
your  Committee— friends  of  the  Union— asked 
for  peace.  But  the  gentleman  from  Clay  says  we 
must  go  further  than  that — that  we  must  not 
only,  as  patriots  and  friends  of  peace,  beg  the 
Government  of  the  Union  and  the  Government 
of  these  States  to  stay  their  arms,  but  that  we 
must  couple  the  demand  with  a  threat,  and  that 
we  must  declare  to  that  Government  if  it  does 
undertake  to  embroil  the  country  in  civil  war  that 
we  will  not  furnish  men  and  means  to  carry  it 
on.  Stripped  of  its  verbiage,  what  does  it  mean  ? 
Nothing  but  this:  That  if  the  Federal  Gov- 
ernment becomes  involved  in  a  war  with  the 
Governments  of  the  seceding  States,  Missouri 
will  secede  from  the  Union.  How  do  the  peo- 
ple of  Missouri  furnish .  means  to  the  Federal 
Government?  Why,  the  means  of  this  Govern- 
ment are  chiefly  derived  from  the  customs. *- 
The  Government  gets  its  money  by  collecting  its 
duties  at  its  Custom  Houses.  There  is  where  the 
Federal  Government  derives  its  resources,  and  as 
long  as  the  State  of  Missouri  remains  in  connec- 
tion with  the  Federal  Government,  its  duties  will 
be  collected  from  our  citizens.  But  if  we  intend 
to  carry  out  the  threat  contained  in  the  proposi- 
tion of  the  gentleman  from  Clay,  the  first  thing 
for  us  to  do  will  be  to  secede  from  the  Union  and 
seize  upon  the  Custom  House  of  St.  Louis.  I  am 
not  willing  to  commit  myself  to  any  such  posi- 
tion. I  know  not  what  I  may  be  willing  to  do 
when  that  dire  catastrophe  shall  come;  but  when 
civil  war  rages  through  the  land,  I  want  the 
people  of  Missouri  to  be  free,  to  do  just  what 


they  believe  their  honor  and  their  interest  will  re- 
quire. I  want  them  hampered  by  no  pledges  and 
embarrassed  by  no  action  on  our  part;  but  I 
want  the  privilege  left  to  them  of  doing  what  their 
honor  and  interest  may  demand.  Suppose,  sir, 
we  should  compromise  the  difficulties  which  are 
now  dividing  the  country.  Suppose  the  State  of 
Georgia  under  such  compromise  should  wish  to 
return  to  the  Union,  and  the  Confederated  Gov- 
ernment should  undertake  to  coerce  Georgia  and 
keep  her  out  of  the  Uniofi.  Suppose  the  people 
of  Georgia,  placing  themselves  beneath  the  flag 
and  upon  the  Constitution  of  theU.  S.,  should  ap- 
peal to  the  Federal  Government  for  aid  in  secur- 
ing to  them  their  Constitutional  rights.  The  gen- 
tleman from  Clay  says  we  must  fold  our  arms 
and  look  upon  the  struggle  with  indifference. — 
That  may  be  so,  sir;  perhaps  that  will  be  the 
proper  course  to  take,  but  I  am  not  willing  now 
to  pledge  myself  to  any  such  position.  Suppose 
your  Confederated  States  should  undertake  to 
block  up  the  mouth  of  the  Mississippi  and  im- 
pose such  burdens  on  our  commerce  as  would  be 
an  outrage  upon  us.  Suppose  our  sisters,  Ten- 
nessee, Kentucky,  as  well  as  Illinois,  Indiana  and 
Ohio,  should  demand  of  Federal  Government  that 
that  great  channel  should  be  opened  to  us.  Does 
the  gentleman  say  that  in  a  conflict  such  as  that 
would  produce,  that  we  must  fold  our  arms  with 
indifference.  I  repeat,  sir,  that  might  be 
the  proper  policy,  perhaps  it  will  be  the 
best  policy,  but  I  am  not  willing  to 
bind  myself  to  it  until  circumstances  arise 
which  will  require  us  to  do  so.  Now,  sir,  we  have 
chosen  to  take  care  of  the  present;  we  have  pro- 
vided in  our  report  for  an  adjournment — so  that, 
if  any  difficulties  may  hereafter  arise,  we  may 
meet  together,  and  then,  with  a  full  acquaintance 
of  the  circumstances,  take  such  course  as  we  may 
think  proper.  Let  us  not  embarrass  our  future 
action  as  a  peace-maker.  Let  us,  in  the  language 
of  Henry  Clay,  "  send  forth  the  olive  branch,  the 
harbinger  of  peace.  We  want  no  war,  no  civil 
strife,  no  collision  commencing  in  South  Caroli- 
na and  ending  God  only  knows  where.  We  want 
no  smoking  ruins;  we  want  no  streams  of  Ameri- 
can blood  shed  by  American  hands ;  but  we  do 
want  to  restore  peace  to  a  distracted  country,  con- 
cord to  a  divided  Republic ;  and  we  want,  if  pos- 
sible, to  look  once  more  upon  the  blessed  spec- 
tacle of  a  united,  happy  and  fraternal  people." 
This  is  what  the  Committee  on  Federal  Relations 
have  sought  to  accomplish.  All  believe  our  resolu- 
tion tends  to  that  end,  and  I  believe  the  amend- 
ment of  the  gentleman  from  Clay  tends  to  no- 
thing but  mischief,  and  I  therefore  appeal  to  the 
friends  of  the  Union  to  vote  down  the  amend- 
ment. 

Mr.  Knott.  In  the  few  remarks  I  propose  to 
submit  upon  the  proposition  before  the  Conven- 
tion, I  shall  endeavor  to  confine  myself  strictly 


81 


to  the  point  under  consideration.  For  one,  sir,  I 
am  in  favor  of  the  amendment  offered  by  the 
gentleman  from  Clay.  Missouri  occupies  a  posi- 
tion in  relation  to  the  other  members  of  this  Con- 
federacy, of  a  most  peculiar  character.  Her  citi- 
zens are  those  who  have  emigrated  to  her  borders 
from  every  portion  of  the  Union:  some  from 
the  rocky  hills  of  New  England,  some  from  the 
verdant  valleys  of  Pennsylvania  and  New  York, 
some  from  the  Blue  Mountains  of  the  Old  Domin- 
ion, some  from  the  shades  of  the  dark  and  bloody 
ground,  and  some  from  the  broad  savannahs  of 
the  sunny  South.  Her  blood  permeates  the  veins 
of  every  portion  of  the  country,  and  if  civil 
strife  should  raise  its  horrid  head  in  our  midst, 
espouse  which  side  we  may,  some  of  us  must  in- 
evitably be  forced  into  a  position  involving  the 
dreadful  neeessiiy  of  imbruing  our  hands  in  the 
life  stream  of  our  brethren.  In  view  of  this 
truth,  I  maintain  it  to  be  the  duty  of  Missouri 
through  her  representatives  on  this  floor,  to  raise 
her  voice,  a  voice  which  the  circumstances  sur- 
rounding her  should  render  more  potent  than 
any  other,  in  the  deliberations  of  our  nation 
upon  existing  difficulties,  in  favor  of  the  restora- 
tion of  peace,  and  the  preservation  of  the  Union 
of  these  States,  not  only  as  the  palladium  of  her 
own  safety,  but  of  the  safety  and  prosperity  of 
her  sister  States.  That  to  effect  this  object,  to  stay 
the  tide  of  revolution,  and  lure  back  her  erring 
sisters  to  the  great  family  of  States  from  which 
they  have  wandered,  she  should  not  stand  sim- 
ply as  a  trembling  suppliant,  imploring  the  other 
States  to  save  her  from  ruin,  but  to  say  to  every 
portion  of  the  Confederacy,  that  while  a  disso- 
lution of  the  Federal  Union  would  inevitably 
plunge  her  in  the  gulf  of  destruction,  they  too 
must  go  down  in  the  terrible  vortex.  She  should 
say  to  her  sisters  of  the  South,  stay  your  mad  ca- 
reer of  revolution ;  and  to  her  sisters  of  the  North, 
come  and  let  us  compromise  our  difficulties,  and 
dwell  together  in  eternal  peace.'  She  should  use 
every  expedient  that  patriotism,  humanity,  and 
brotherly  Jove  can  dictate,  to  remove  forever  the 
fruitful  source  of  discord  from  our  midst,  and 
give  back  to  the  entire  country  the  priceless  boon 
of  prosperity  and  peace.  She  should  do  all  this, 
and  more.  Her  highest  and  most  sacred  duty  is 
the  protection  of  her  own  citizens,  who  have  ever 
been  true  to  her  interests,  and  loyal  to  her  institu- 
tions; and  when  she  discovers  that  all  her  noble 
efforts  cannot  aliay  the  distractions  of  the  coun- 
try—when  she  sees  that  civil  war  is  about  to  scat- 
ter, with  its  scorching  breath,  desolation  and  ruin 
al!  over  the  country,  like  the  simoon  sweeps  the 
deserts  of  Arabia,  I  hold  that  she  should  throw 
•round  her  own  children  the  broad  folds  of  her 
protecting  mantle,  and  shield  thorn  from  the  pass- 
ing storm ;  and  when  the  hurricane  of  war  shall 
have  passe  1  away,  let  her  collect  again  the  scat- 
tered  fragments  of  a  once  glorious  Union,  and 


build  a  new  and  more  enduring  monument  to  lib- 
erty and  peace.  Such,  sir,  were  the  views  which 
I  frankly  avowed  in  my  circulars  and  speeches  to 
the  generous  constituency  that  honored  me  with 
a  seat  on  this  floor;  and  I  desire  to  represent  them 
with  all  the  fidelity  with  which  I  am  capable.  I, 
sir,  was  born  upon  Southern  soil,  and  I  may  have 
inherited  too  much  of  the  fervor  usually  attribut- 
ed to  the  people  of  that  section  of  our  country ; 
but  I  can  conceive  of  nothing  more  revolting  to 
the  sentiments  of  humanity  and  religion  which 
animate  my  bosom,  than  to  be  forced  to  that 
most  horrible  of  all  alternatives,  fratricidal  strife; 
and  while  I  would  consider  it  unjust  and  inhu- 
man to  be  compelled  by  the  State  of  my  adop- 
tion to  imbrue  my  hands  in  the  blood  of  my  kin- 
dred, and  those  bound  to  me  by  all  the  ties  of 
early  friendship  and  association,  I  am  not  willing 
that  any  citizen  of  Missouri,  whether  he  comes 
from  a  Northern  or  a  Southern  State,  should  ba 
placed  in  a  like  horrible  predicament,  when  the 
State  to  which  he  has  ever  been  loyal  can  save 
him  from  it. 

By  adopting  this  amendment,  she  promises 
that  protection;  and  she  does  so  with- 
out violating  a  single  principle  of  loyalty  to 
the  Constitution  of  the  General  Government. 
She  simply  says  to  the  seceding  States,  stay  the 
hand  of  fratricidal  strife,  and  to  the  General  Gov- 
ernment do  likewise;  for  while  we  discountenance 
a  war  to  be  inaugurated  by  the  one,  we  will  not  lend 
our  aid  to  subjugate  and  drive  back  the  other  to 
their  allegiance. 

It  has  been  intimated  that  this  amendment 
pledges  the  State  to  withhold  her  aid  to  the 
General  Government  in  enforcing  the  law,  but, 
sir,  in  my  opinion,  it  does  no  such  thing.  It 
simply  recognizes  the  difference  between  enfor- 
cing the  law  and  making  war  upon  a  State,  for 
while  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States  gives 
the  President  power  to  do  the  one,  it  confers  upon 
him  no  authority  to  do  the  other.  The  President 
of  the  United  States  is  authorized  and  required 
by  the  Constitution  to  enforce  the  law.  But  how? 
Manifestly  in  the  manner  pointed  out  by  the  law, 
and  not  otherwise.  When  a  law  of  the  United 
States  is  violated,  that  violation  must  be  ascer- 
tained by  regular  judicial  proceedings,  and  when 
the  sentence  of  the  law  has  been  formally  pro- 
nounced by  a  court  of  competent  jurisdiction, 
then  if  the  execution  of  that  judgment  is  resisted, 
and  not  till  then  can  the  President  make  bare  the 
arm  of  military  power  for  the  enforcement.  For 
instance,  should  an  army  of  South  Carolinians 
batter  down  the  walls  of  Fort  Sumpter,  proceed- 
ing upon  the  hypothesis  that  South  Carolina  is 
still  in  the  Union,  the  perpetrators  of  the  deed 
would  be  guilty  of  treason.  But  will  any  one 
pretend  that  the  President  has  power  to  punish 
that  treason  by  sending  an  army  to  lay  Charles- 
ton in  ashes?    No,  sir,  the  guilty  parties  must  bo 

6 


82 


indicted  by  a  Grand  Jury,  tried  in  a  court  of  com- 
petent jurisdiction,  sentenced  and  punished  ac- 
cording to  law;  and  should  the  execution  of  that 
sentence  be  resisted,  the  President  would  haAre  the 
Constitutional  power,  and  it  would  be  his  duty  to 
use  the  military  force  at  his  disposal  as  a  posse 
comitatvs  to  see  that  it  was  carried  into  effect. 
If  this  is  not  true,  we  live  under  a  despotism  of 
the  worst  possible  description,  a  despotism  in 
which  the  Chief  Executive  makes  the  law,  admin- 
isters and  executes  it  without  the  form  of  a  trial. 
It  would,  therefore,  be  no  violation  of  her 
fealty  to  the  General  Government  for  our 
State  to  withhold  from  the  Executive  of  the 
nation  the  means  of  exercising  an  unconstitution- 
al power.  Again,  sir,  it  has  been  intimated  that 
this  amendment  looks  to  secession,  and  pledges 
the  State  to  withhold  from  the  coffers  of  the  Un- 
ion the  custom  to  bo  collected  in  our  custom  house, 
and  if  I  thought  so  I  should  certainly  oppose 
its  adoption,  for  if  I  know  a  single  pulsation  of 
my  heart,  I  know  it  is  for  the  preservation  of 
this  Union,  for  upon  that  I  know  depends  not  on- 
ly all  the  prospects  of  my  own  State  for  future 
prosperity  and  happiness,  but  the  prospects  of 
all  with  whom  she  stands  connected  in  this  Con- 
federacy. But  I  cannot  view  it  in  that  light.  The 
State  of  Missouri,  as  a  corporation,  as  a  State, 
pays  not  one  cent  of  duties  collected  in  our  cus- 
tom houses,  nor  does  this  amendment  pledge  her 
to  deprive  the  General  Government  of  anything 
that  may  be  due  to  it  from  individuals.  I 
can  see  no  application  in  the  cases  assumed  by 
the  gentleman  from  Buchanan,  whatever. 

It  has  been  frequently  said  on  this  floor,  and  just- 
ly said,  that  Missouri  should  occupy  the  position 
of  mediator  between  the  contending  parlies.  To 
that  position  I  think,  her  peculiarly  and  admirably 
suited,  under  all  the  circumstances  surrounding 
her,  and  for  one  I  am  anxious,  and  more  thau 
anxious  that  she  should  do  so;  but  when  she  un- 
dertakes this  mediatorial  office,  I  do  not  desire  to 
see  her  assume  the  position  of  the  vulture  when 
called  upon  to  arbitrate  between  the  wolf  and  the 
lamb,  and  declare  in  the  outset  that  she  will  be  on 
the  stronger  side,  for  if  anything  is  to  be  antici- 
pated from  her  office  of  pacificator  it  must  be  ef- 
fected by  the  strictest  impartiality  betwen  the 
contending  parties.  There  is  nothing  in  this 
amendment  inconsistent  with  the  position  Mis- 
souri holds  in  the  Union,  nor  the  tone  and  tenor 
of  the  report  of  the  Committee  on  Federal  Rela- 
tions. Let  her,  therefore,  declare  by  its  adoption 
that  she  desires  no  war,  no  bloodshed,  but  peace 
and  compromise.  Let  her  say  to  both  sections  of 
the  country,  let  us  bury  our  strifes,  and  again  as 
a  great  brotherhood  of  empires  go  foward  hand 
in  hand  in  a  career  of  prosperity  and  glory  that 
shall  challenge  the  admiration  of  all  the  nations 
of  the  earth  in  all  time  to  come. 


Mr.  McFbrkan.  The  mateiial  resolution  re- 
ported by  the  committee  declares  that  a  peaceable 
solution  of  our  difficulties  requires  that  the  Gene- 
ral Government,  as  well  as  the  seceding  States? 
refrain  from  a  conflict.  It  says  that  a  peaceable 
solution  depends  upon  abstaining  from  a  conflict, 
and  the  amendment  says  that  the  fate  of  Mis- 
souri d<  pends  upon  it.  I  think  therefore,  sir, 
that  this  amendment  docs  materially  propose  to 
alter  the  original  resolution,  and  therefore,  sir, 
I  am  opposed  to  it.  If  the  amendment  is  true, 
and  an  unfortunate  collision  should  take  place 
between  the  General  Government  and  the  sece- 
ding States,  then  Missouri  will  be  at  sea  without 
rudder  or  compass.  It  is  unwise,  Mr.  President, 
to  underiake  to  deride  an  important  question 
before  it  is  necessary  to  do  so.  It  is  unwise  to 
decide  what  should  be  done  in  a  given  case  be- 
fore a  contingency  arises  and  all  the  facts  and 
circumstances  are  known.  I  might  easily,  sir, 
imagine  a  case  in  which  the  seceding  States 
might  go  to  war  with  the  Federal  Government, 
and  I  might  just  as  easily  imagine  a  case  why 
the  General  Government  should  go  to  war 
with  the  seceding  States,  and  I  might  imagine 
a  case  when  the  State  of  Missouri  would  readily 
furnish  her  men  in  that  war.  For  instance,  sir, 
if  the  seceding  States  were  to  connect  themselves 
with  a  foreign  power,  such  as  France  or  England, 
and  make  war  upon  the  rights  of  the  States  of  this 
Union,  would  not  Missouri  in  a  contingency  like 
that,  remaining  in  the  Union,  furnish  her  men? 
I  therefore  think  it  unwise  to  decide  any  question 
as  important  as  this,  until  it  is  necessary  to  de- 
cide it.  Again,  can  wo  not  safely  leave  this  matter 
in  the  hands  of  the  executive  of  a  State,  where 
the  Constitution  of  the  United  States  places  it. 
I  am  aware  that  Missouri  might  assume  a  posi- 
tion of  neutrality.  Indeed  that  might  be  her  true 
position,  becau-e,  sir,  tin  \er  the  Constitution  of 
the  United  States,  if  the  President  calls  on 
Missouri,  the  call  has  to  be  made  on  the 
executive  of  the  State,  and  the  executive  may  or 
may  not  respond  affirmatively  to  that  demand, 
afi cr  a  careful  consideration  of  all  the  circum- 
stances that  surround  him  at  the  time  the  demand 
is  made.  Hence  I  say  there  is  ro  necessity 
for  this  amendment.  I  deem  it  inexpedient 
and  improper  to  decide  a  great  matter  here, 
before  we  know  all  the  circumstances  that 
may  surround  the  case.  Again,  sir,  I  do  not  be- 
lieve that  the  fate  of  Missouri  depends  upon  any 
conflict  that  is  now  threatened  between  the  Gen- 
eral Government  and  the  seceding  States.  Her 
interest  and  destiny  rests  mote  upon  a  good  un- 
derstanding and  fraternal  feeling  between  the 
States  of  the  Mississippi  Valley  than  any  oth- 
er State  of  the  Union.  Missouri,  sir,  is  em- 
phatically a  Western  Sta'e,  and  while  .she  remains 
on  terms  of  peace  with  these  Stiles  of  the  Missis- 
sippi Valley  her  prosperity  will  not  be  materially 


83 


injured.  Missouri  ought  to  do  everything  in  her 
power  to  preserve  the  old  Union,  with  every  star 
in  its  constellation.  Yet,  sir,  I  do  not  believe  her 
fate  depends  upon  any  conflict  that  might  ensue 
between  the  General  Government  and  the  seced- 
ing States.  Again,  I  am  not  willing  to  place  the 
General  Government  in  the  same  position  that 
we  place  the  seceding  States.  We  owe  a  duty  to 
the  Federal  Government  that  we  do  not  owe  to 
the  seceded  States.  Then,  Mr.  President,  there  is 
another  reason  why  we  should  not  pass  this 
amendment :  In  the  last  four  months  Ave  have 
beheld  the  politicians  of  this  great  nation  threat- 
ening each  other.  We  have  beheld  the  great  State 
of  New  York,  in  her  Legislature,  offering  men 
and  money  to  the  Federal  Government  to  coerce 
the  seceded  States.  On  the  other  hand,  when 
these  resolutions  reached  the  Southern  States,  we 
have  heard  Kentucky  and  other  Southern  States 
declare  that  no  Northern  army  shall  ever  cross 
their  borders  to  coerce  or  engage  in  civil  strife 
with  any  seceding  Slate.  This,  Sir,  is  a  melan- 
choly and  deplorable  condition  for  this  great 
Government  to  be  involved  in.  Many  of  the  evils 
that  now  agitate  the  public  mind  exist  but  in 
threats  upon  abstract  questions.  The  Govern- 
ment is  threatened  to  be  dissolved,  and  has  been 
to  the  extent  of  seven  States.  I  do  not  want 
this  Convention,  Sir,  to  engage  in  the  business  of 
threatening  other  States  or  the  Federal  Gov- 
ernment. I  especially  do  not  want  it  done 
until  it  is  necessary  so  to  do.  The  moral  power 
of  the  State  of  Missouri  will  be  great  in  the  coun- 
cils of  the  nation,  and  that  moral  power  depends 
upon  the  loyalty  of  the  State  to  the  Federal  Con- 
stitution and  Government  that  our  fathers  builded  ; 
and  if,  Sir,  we  declare  that  we  will  not  discharge 
our  duties  to  the  Federal  Government,  we  at  once 
destroy  our  moral  power  for  good.  Therefore, 
Sir,  I  am  opposed  to  this  amendment.  It  is  un- 
necessary at  the  present  time— it  is  out  of  place, 
and  can  do  no  good.  It  will  destroy  the  moral 
power  of  our  State  in  the  great  strife  existing 
between  the  different  sections  of  this  Confederacy. 

Mr.  Shackelford  of  Howard.  Representing 
as  I  do  a  consituency  that  has  a  large  interest  in 
the  peculiar  institution  that  has  been  the  source 
n°  all  our  troubles,  I  feel  that  I  owe  it  to  myself, 
as  well  as  to  them  to  state  to  this  Convention  the 
reasons  why  I  shall  vote  against  the  amendment. 
Mr.  President,  when  I  see  surrounding  me  gentle- 
men, perhaps  from  almost  every  State  in  this 
Confederacy,  from  the  North  and  from  the  South, 
I  feel  that  Missouri  is  properly  entitled  to  the  po- 
sition of  mediator.  Standing  as  I  do  upon  my 
own  native  soil,  I  feel  that  I  can  raise  a  voice  of 
warning  to  my  fellow  citizens  who  have  chosen 
Missouri  as  the  State  of  their  adoption.  When 
this  resolution  was  read  by  my  aged  friend  who 
is  Chairman  of  this  Committee,  (Judge  Gamble,) 


I  tell  you  that  my  j  udgment  gave  it  my  approval, 
and  my  heart  beat  in  solemn  response  to  the  prin- 
ciples therein  laid  down.  Clearer  and  more  dis- 
passionate deliberation  has  but  confirmed  me  in 
my  first  impression.  It  is  therefore  due  to  the  gen- 
tleman who  has  offered  this  amendment  that  I 
should  state  the  reasons  which  will  govern  me  in 
my  vote  here.  I  have  no  political  record  in  the  past 
I  desire  none  in  the  future,  sir.  The  lever  which 
sometimes  make  politicians  flutter,  the  question 
of  calling  the  ayes  and  noes,  has  no  terror  for  me. 
But,  sir,  in  the  consideration  of  this  amendment 
it  should  be  our  design  to  discuss  it  alone  on  its 
merits.  I  come  to  this  resolution,  and  I  desire  to 
discuss  it  on  its  merits.  I  desire,  sir,  to  send 
forth  my  views  in  relation  to  the  objects  and  pur- 
poses of  this  Convention.  Gentlemen  all  agree, 
sir,  that  we  should  be  for  peace,  that  we  should 
act  as  mediator.  If  we  all  agree  as  to  that,  then 
in  the  name  of  all  that  is  good,  in  the  name  of 
our  wives  and  children  at  home,  shall  we  not  act 
together  here  as  a  unit?  Shall  Ave  differ 
merely  about  Avords  ?  No,  sir.  Let  me  tell  you 
that  the  resolution  as  originally  reported,  to  my 
mind,  goes  just  as  far  as  we  ought  to  go.  It. 
neither  says  more  nor  less  than  is  necessary;  and 
Avhile  I  might  agree  with  the  abstract  proposition 
of  any  sentiment  Avhich  may  be  offered  here,  yet, 
sir,  Avhen  Ave  look  at  the  objects  and  purposes 
that  Ave  have  to  consider,  Ave  must  perform  our 
duties  regardless  of  the  consequencos,  and  Ave 
must  not  lose  sight  of  the  object  for  Avhich  we  aro 
assembled  together.  When  I  Avent  before  my  con- 
stituents I  told  them  I  could  not  look  forward 
into  the  future  as  to  Avhat  position  I  could  or 
Avould  take  as  circumstances  might  arise.  I  told 
them  I  could  only  judge  of  the  circumstances  as 
they  might  arise;  but  I  told  them  all  the  powers 
and  energies  of  my  mind  should  be  used  to  re- 
store fraternal  feeling  in  this  Union.  Then  the 
reason  Avhy  I  object  to  that  amendment  is  this : 
The  language  of  "shall  and  shan't,"  wilt  and 
Avon't,"  is  not  the  language  of  peace.  I  am  un- 
Avilling  to  say  to  any  government,  you  shall  and 
you  shan't;  and  I  am  unwilling  to  say  to  our  sis- 
ter Southern  States  and  Southern  friends,  with 
Avhom  my  AA'holo  sympathy  lies,  you  shall  and 
yon  shan't.  It  is  not  the  voice  of  bravery  Avhich 
says  you  shall  or  you  shan't.  No,  sir,  it  is  a 
braA'c  man  that  says,  "  this  is  my  will,  this  is  my 
opinion;  if  you  violate  or  go  contrary  to  my  ex- 
press will,  the  consequences  rest  upon  your  own 
head."  Then,  it*  our  dearest  rights  arc  to  be  in- 
A-aded  by  Northern  fanatics,  is  it  necessary  for 
this  ConArention  to  say  to  Missourians,  you 
must  do  thus  and  so?  No,  sir;  as  a  Mis- 
sourian  I  say  it  needs  no  A'oice  of  this 
Convention  to  tell  me  how  I  shall  act. 
The  promptings  of  my  own  heart,  and  the  prompt- 
ings of  the  heart  of  every  Missourian  will  tell 
him  how  to  act,  and  he  will  act  according  to  the 


84 


circumstances,  and  as  his  judgment  shall  dictate. 
Mr.  President,  this  resolution  breathes  the  spirit 
of  peace.  I  favored  this  resolution  because  I 
felt  it  was  pointing  to  peace.  I  felt,  sir,  it  was 
actuated  by  that  spirit  of  peace  which  ought  to 
actuate  and  inflame  every  bosom.  When  He, 
who  spake  as  man  never  spake,  said  to  the  ra- 
ging billows,  "Peace,  be  still:"  I  would  say, 
that  the  same  spirit  should  govern  and  actuate 
the  purposes  and  objects  of  this  Convention. 
I  would  say,  when  the  raging  elements  are 
surging  around  us,  and  passion,  discord,  and 
fury  are  the  order  of  the  day,  in  the  language 
of  Him,  who  controls  the  elements,  "  Peace, 
be  still."  I  have  no  idea,  sir,  that  I 
shall  tie  myself  down  to  any  proposi- 
tion, or  plan  of  adjustment.  I  can  only  be  gov- 
erned by  present  surroundings,  and  when  I  say  that 
this  or  that  may  be  a  proper  basis  of  adjustment,  I 
do  not  tie  myself  down  to  it;  but  I  say  this — I  am 
only  willing  to  speak  for  the  present.  I  confess 
I  can  see  no  further.  I  believe,  sir,  that 
our  peace,  and  our  harmony  and  fraternal  Union, 
are  not  dependent  upon  the  adoption  of  this 
or  that  measure;  but  I  say  to  you,  that  if  we 
will  have  a  compromise  we  must  first  set  our- 
selves right;  we  must  discard  passion,  we  must 
throw  aside  this  spirit  of  recrimination,  anger 
and  passion,  and  get  ourselves  right,  and  then 
only  can  we  see  our  wav  clear,  and  then,  and 
then  only  can  we  teach  transgressors  the  way. 
Then,  sir,  I  tell  you,  as  one  who  believes  that  this 
is  the  only  sentiment  that  will  restore  harmony 
in  ©ur  distracted  country ;  that  when  the  people 
shall  get  together  and  consult  about  this  matter; 
when  the  pure  principles  of  Christianity  shall 
predominate  and  overrule  every  heart;  that  when 
we  shall  meet  our  brethren  of  the  North  in 
Convention — I  say  then  when  these  principles 
shall  be  uppermost,  and  we  get  together 
in  Convention,  they  will  be  ready  to  concede 
more  than  we  ask,  and  we  shall  be  ready  to  take 
less  than  they  will  give.  These  being  my  sen- 
timents I  am  unwilling  to  mar  the  beauty  of  these 
resolutions.  I  am  unwilling  to  vote  for  any  re- 
solutions contrary  to  "our  present  mission."  I 
am  unwilling  to  give  for;h  threats  as  the  lan- 
guage of  peace.  This  is  the  sentiment  I  gave 
before  my  constituents.  This  is  the  sentiment 
they  asked  me  to  advocate  before  this  body; 
and  if  I  fail  to  do  so,  I  shall  not  be  discharging 
my  duty.  My  constituents  have  more  pecuniary 
interest,  perhaps,  than  any  district  in  the  State  in 
this  matter,  and  they  have  said  m  language 
not  to  be  misunderstood,  "Peace,  peace."  I  ex- 
pect that  this  will  be  my  only  political  record ;  but 
I  say,  sir,  if  dissolution  and  war  shall  come,  and 
if  by  our  efforts  we  cannot  heal  the  discord  in  our 
country — then,  I  say,  I  am  not  willing  to  place 
myself  in  such  an  attitude  that  my  children  shall 
reproach  me  in  after  years,  because  I  did  not  do 


all  I  could  to  save  them  from  the  terrors,  trials 
and  struggles  of  civil  war.  But  if  peace  shall 
reign,  and  my  children  shall  stand  under  the  ban- 
ner of  our  common  country,  as  freemen,  though 
they  may  be  stripped  of  every  vestige  of  pecunia- 
ry interest  and  reward  in  this  world — even  though 
stripped  of  every  thing,  I  shall  ever  have  the  calm 
satisfaction  of  knowing  that  they  stand  there  with 
clear  heai-ts,  honest  hands,  as  freemen.  Far  bet- 
ter that  they  should  stand  thus,  than  that 'they 
should  roll  in  the  lap  of  luxury,  as  worshippers  of 
mammon,  slaves  of  avarice  and  contributing  of 
their  substance  to  the  tyrant  that  rules  over 
them.  Then  be  this  my  only  record— and  I  have 
the  hope  that  it  may  be  my  only  record — whereon 
my  name  shall  stand,  side  by  side  with  the  many 
patriotic  hearts  that  beat  in  this  Convention  in 
favor  of  these  majority  resolutions. 

Mr.  Henderson— Mr.  President  and  gentle- 
men of  the  Convention :  It  really  seems  to  me 
that  since  the  beginning  of  the  deliberations  of 
this  Convention,  we  have  been  disposed  to  mag- 
nify and  to  give  an  undue  importance  to  many  of 
the  apparent  difficulties  of  the  present  time- 
When  we  come  to  look  at  our  condition  it  is  not 
s  o  bad  as  at  first  blush  we  might  anticipate.  Five 
months  ago,  we  all  thought  that  we  were  the  hap- 
piest people  on  earth.  I  care  not  what  party  a 
man  may  have  belonged  to,  or  what  set  of  polit- 
ical principles  he  was  attempting  to  establish 
upon  the  policy  of  the  country,  yet  it  must  be  ad- 
mitted that  every  man  presumed  that  we  had  a 
Government  the  best  that  had  been  guaranteed  to 
man,  and  that  we  enjoyed  a  prosperity  never  en- 
joyed by  the  people  of  any  nation  on  the  earth; 
and  yet,  by  some  strange  delusion,  by  some  unac- 
countable transformation  of  the  human  mind,  we 
have  come  to  the  conclusion  that  we  are  just  upon 
the  ver^e  of  destruction.  It  is  not  so — not  one 
word  of  it.  There  are  loyal  hearts  in  this  country, 
from  one  end  to  the  other,  that  beat  steadily  and 
responsive  in  their  loyalty  to  that  flag  and  the  Con- 
stitution of  our  fathers ;  and  though  for  a  short 
time  party  feeling  may  get  the  better  of  their 
judgment,  though  for  a  short  time  wild  fanaticsim 
may  take  possession  of  the  better  feelings  of  the 
human  heart,  yet  the  day  of  peace  and  regenera- 
tion is  at  hand.  I  witnessed  this  thing  once  be- 
fore. I  saw  the  very  same  States  that  have  now 
seceded  from  Congress  and  from  the  Federal  Gov- 
ernment secede  from  a  Convention.  I  saw 
South  Carolina  secede.  I  then  felt  what  must 
necessarily  be  the  consequence.  I  saw  Alabama 
leave,  and  Florida,  and  Mississippi,  and  Louisi- 
ana and  Texas.  I  stood  as  I  believed,  the  correct 
representative  of  the  heart  and  feeling 
of  my  people.  I  said  to  them  you  may 
all  secede,  but  I  shall  stand  true  to  the  State 
of  Missouri.  I  let  them  go,  and  on  returning  I 
found  that  my  State  was  unwilling  to  abandon 
me,  and  instead  of  so  doing,  stood  true  to  the 


85 


principles  of  the  Constitution,  firm  for  the  Union 
and  true  to  the  conservative  platform  laid  down 
by  the  Democracy  of  the  Nation.  Not  hav- 
ing been  intimidated  then,  but  having  been 
sustained  and  supported  by  an  honest  yeoman- 
ry, the  free  people  of  this  State,  I  can 
witness  their  departure  again,  feeling  con- 
scious that  nobody  has  been  nurt  except 
themselves.  I  would  that  they  had  never  gone. 
I  would  that  to-day  a  proper  spirit  and  feeling 
animated  their  bosoms,  that  they  might  willingly 
and  freely  return  back  to  the  Union  of  our  fath- 
ers. They  must  yet  do  it.  Politicians  of  the 
Southern  States— and  I  am  going  to  talk  plain- 
ly— the  drunken  demagogues  of  the  present  day, 
who  unfortunately  have  possessed  themselves  of 
the  power  that  ought  to  be  in  the  hands  of  good 
and  conservative  men,  have  so  far  obtained  the 
control  in  those  States  as  to  leave  the  people  but 
little  room  for  the  expression  of  honest  senti- 
ments. Those  that  are  interested  in  the  charac- 
ter and  perpetuity  of  the  Union  are  in  danger  if 
they  make  known  their  sentiments  of  loyalty.  I 
had  supposed  that  in  the  march  of  our  Govern- 
ment, from  its  infancy  on  towards  its  decline, 
as  other  governments  have  declined  before  us, 
the  day  might  come  when  a  Marius  or  a 
Scylla  might  figure.  I  had  supposed  that 
when  the  nation  should  become  degenera- 
ted and  enfeebled  by  vice,  in  all  probability 
there  might  bo  an  American  Cataline,  but 
I  had  not  supposed  that  in  the  first  eigh- 
ty years  of  our  existence,  a  Yancey,  with 
all  the  malignity  of  a  Cataline,  with  a  total  dis- 
regard of  all  the  blessings  which  now  make  us 
the  happiest  people  on  earth,  would  attempt  to 
plunge  the  people  into  revolution,  when  the  inev- 
itable result  must,  in  the  course  of  a  few  years — 
even  though  they  depart  in  peace  from  us  to- 
day— be  utter  ruin  and  destruction  to  that  people. 
Is  not  this  so?  And  yet  some  gentlemen,  even  in 
Missouri,  hesitate  to  say  that  a  man  is  a  traitor, 
even  after  he  has  proven  himself  to  be  a  traitor. 
Gentlemen  are  afraid  to  say  what  they  really 
think  about  this  matter :  they  are  afraid  of  the 
people — of  that  people  who  are  to-day  as  true  to 
the  Union  and  the  Constitution  as  any  living  peo- 
ple upon  earth.  They  seem  to  desire  to  engraft 
words  of  a  certain  meaning  upon  resolutions ;  they 
hesitate  about  inarching  up  to  the  point  that  is 
now  necessary  to  be  reached  to  save  the  Govern- 
ment from  ruin — and  leave  all  in  doubt  and  con- 
fusion. This  will  do  us  no  good.  This  is  no 
time  for  hesitancy.  As  some  gentlemen  refer  to 
the  political  records,  I  say  if  I  can  make  a  record 
to  save  Missouri  from  impending  ruin,  I  want 
no  other  record.  No  man  in  this  proud  State  needs 
any  other  record  than  the  record  that  he  has  con- 
tributed his  mite  to  save  us  from  the  conse- 
quences that  are  now  pressing  upon  us.  New 
doctrines  are  being  taught  in  the  present  day.    A 


robber  in  one  of  the  Northern  States,  following 
out  the  bent  of  his  mind,  seizes  upon  my  proper- 
ty, takes  it  and  appropriates  it  to  his  own  use, 
and  deprives  me  of  it.  I  go  in  pursuit  of  my 
property,  and  meet  a  band  of  free  negroes  and 
contemptible  white  men  who  are  associated  toge- 
ther for  the  purpose  of  carrying  out  the  original 
design  of  the  robber  and  of  depriving  me  of  the 
use  of  my  property.  All  these  things  occur,  but 
as  a  remedy  for  it  we  are  taught  the  new  doc- 
trine that  all  law  must  be  repealed.  Is  that  the 
true  doctrine  ?  Is  our  government  to  be  preserved 
by  a  doctrine  of  that  character?  Surely  not.  I 
was  once  taught,  and  I  yet  believe  it,  that  when 
the  law  is  defective,  when  its  execution  is  not 
properly  enforced,  we  can  make  the  law  more 
stringent  and  provide  better  remedies  for  its  true 
and  proper  enforcement.  That  is  the  true  doe- 
trine  of  the  government,  and  when  we  depart 
from  it  ten  thousand  difncuLies  will  environ 
Missouri  and  this  Union,  consecrated  by  the  wis- 
dom of  an  illustrious  ancestry.  Tell  me 
not  they  made  such  a  government — tell  me  not 
this  is  a  new  doctrine  that  is  now  being  taught — 
tell  me  not  that  we  owe  our  preservation  so  far 
and  our  prosperity,  to  the  idea  that  we  are  thirty- 
four  independent  people,  and  not  one  people.  It 
was  supposed,  when  our  institutions  were  found- 
ed, that  in  union  there  was  strength.  It  was  sup- 
posed that  in  union  there  was  power  to  enforce 
the  decrees  of  an  honest  judiciary.  It  was  sup- 
posed, in  the  establishment  of  our  Government 
that  it  would  be  perpetual,  that  it  was  to  last  not 
only  to  bless  those  who  made  it,  but  to  bless  fu- 
ture generations,  and  to  open  the  door  in  our  Gov- 
ernment, and  make  it  the  asylum  of  the  op- 
pressed in  all  lands.  But,  as  the  great  remedy 
for  existing  evils,  the  great  remedy  which  is  now 
advanced,  is  secession!  Is  this  doctrine  true? 
Some  gentlemen  are  afraid  of  the  people  of  Mis- 
souri. I  am  not.  From  my  place  here  to-day  I 
declare  this  doctrine  of  secession  to  be  a  dam- 
nable  heresy!  That  expression  is  strong;  but  I 
declare  my  honest  sentiments,  and  I  am  will- 
ing to  trust  an  honest  people  to  stand  true 
to  this  declaration.  It  was  never  designed  by 
our  forefathers  as  a  remedy  for  anything.  It 
is  but  the  destraction  of  the  Government,  un- 
fortunately, and  this  must  be  accomplished, 
only  to  establish  the  fact  that  there  is  a  spirit 
of  insubordination  and  reckless  folly— a  spir- 
it that  disregards  law  and  order— now  prevail- 
ing from  the  Northern  regions  of  our  Republic 
to  those  of  the  South;  a  spirit  that  seems 
to  delight  in  setting  at  defiance  all  that  can 
tend  to  give  us  peace  and  prosperity,  and  we  are 
looking  upon  that  spirit  of  reckless  disregard  of 
law  as  a  remedy  for  existing  evils,  and  debating 
whether  to  plunge  into  this  reckless  disregard 
ourselves  and  offset  one  wrong  against  another. 
Is  that  the  true  doctrine  ?    So  long  as  we  practice 


86 


upon  that — so  long  as  we  acknowledge  it  to  be  a 
truth  in  the  government  of  the  country,  then  the 
very  evils  we  complain  of  impose  upon  us  the 
necessity  of  revolution  in  order  to  redress  our 
wrongs.  What  are  our  complaints?  We  com- 
plain that  the  fugiiive  slave  law  has  been  violat- 
ed in  the  Northern  States,  and  if  we  once  admit 
the  doctrine  of  secession  to  be  time,  then  as  an 
offset  to  an  ordinance  of  secession,  what  is  there 
to  prevent  the  Northern  States  from  at  once  pass- 
ing laws  that  no  slave  owner  shall  recapture 
slaves?  And  this  is  a  remedy,  not  for 
any  evil,  but  to  plunge  hastily  into  a 
movement  without  looking  at  the  conse- 
quences that  must  flow  from  such  a  course. 
The  people  of  Missouri  expect  us  to  act  with- 
out fear.  They  expect  an  honest  declaration  of 
principles  that  will  meet  their  views.  What  is 
the  condition  of  our  country?  Seven  stars  of 
the  constellation  have  shot  madly  from  their  or- 
bits. What  is  the  duty  of  Missouri?  This  is  an 
important,  a  very  important  consideration,  and 
when  we  look  at  the  Constitution  and  the  design 
of  our  institutions,  there  is  but  one  answer  left  in 
the  patriotic  heart;  there  can  be  but  one.  I  am 
told  that  they  have  gone  to  secure  their  rights  in 
slave  property.  Having  been  brought  up  as  a 
Democrat  of  the  strictest  sect,  I  too  might  have 
been  led  into  this  delusion,  if  I  had  not  had  an 
opportunity  to  know  better.  They  never  left  this 
confederacy — I  mean  the  politicians  who  have 
governed  and  controlled  this  movement — on  ac- 
count of  any  fear  whatever  as  to  their  rights  in 
negro  property.  It  is  a  false  idea  of  commercial 
greatness.  They  have,  since  1832,  inculcated  a 
doctrine  that  a  tariff  upon  imports  is  a  mere  bur- 
den upon  exports;  that  their  cities  have  languish- 
ed under  the  revenue  laws  of  the  Government; 
that  their  fields  have  become  barren  under  the  op- 
pressions and  exactions  of  an  unjust  Government. 
The  merchant  of  Charleston  to-day,  candidly 
and  sincerely  believes,  in  case  his  government 
can  be  established,  that  South  Carolina  can  be 
separated  from  the  Federal  Union,  Charles- 
ton in  the  course  of  ten  years  will  become  a 
New  York.  The  merchants  of  Savannah 
have  the  same  opinion,  the  merchants  of  Mobile 
and  the  merchants  of  New  Orleans  have  the 
same  opinibn,  and  unfortunately  I  must  say  this 
delusion  of  the  day  is  entertained  by  some  of 
the  merchants  of  the  West.  The  great  city  of  St. 
Louis  to-day  owes  its  greatness  and  prosperity 
alone  to  the  Union.  But  this  delusion  has  seized 
upon  some  men  of  sense  in  Missouri  and  in  the 
city  of  St.  Louis,  and  they  have  come  to  the  con- 
clusion that  in  case  a  Southern  Confederacy  is 
formed,  Missouri  must  go  with  it  and  St. 
Louis  will  thereby  become  the  great  city  upon  this 
continent.  This  delusion  upon  the  minds  of  some 
men  of  the  South  has  caused  this  unfortunate 
state  of  affairs.    But  there  is  another  thin?  and 


it  is  this : — in  that  country  there  are  designing 
men,  men  who,  in  their  estimation,  have  not 
been  properly  regarded  with  public  favor  in  this 
country;  men  who  have  sought  under  the  binding 
obligation  of  allegiance  to  oath-bound  leagues, 
to  go  and  take  Cuba  and  subject  its  wealth 
to  their  rapacity;  men  who  have  formed  or- 
ganizations year  after  year,  to  go  in  the 
spirit  of  Cortez  and  Pizarro,  and  sieze  upon 
the  wealth  of  Central  American  States,  and 
to  carry  on  a  war  of  pillage  upon  the  com- 
merce and  wealth  of  their  people.  Thcro  is  a 
vast  degree  of  feeling  of  that  character,  and 
these  things  combined  with  the  idea  that  has  been 
gravely  inculcated  on  the  Southern  mind  for  a 
number  of  years,  that  the  Government  of  the 
Union  is  oppressive:  all  these  things  have 
driven  that  people  into  a  total  disregard  of  their 
own  interest  and  into  that  which  must  inevitably 
produce  their  ruin.  This  work  has  been  done 
regardless  of  the  consequences.  The  excuse  that 
has  been  given  for  this  movement  is  that  which 
finds  sympathy  with  the  people  of  Missouri.  We 
are  left  to  believe  that  it  is  the  fear  of  the  great 
sectional  and  dominant  party  that  has  driven 
them  to  take  this  extraordinary  step.  Thousands 
of  the  very  best  Southern  citizens  have  been 
driven  out  of  the  Union  under  the  belief  that  the 
triumph  of  this  sectional  party  was  the  real 
cause  of  their  being  thus  driven  out.  Designing 
demagogues  and  politicians  who  to-day  would  rob 
them,  if  they  could  only  conceal  their  plunder — 
and  in  the  course  of  a  few  years  they  will  be  able 
to  do  it  under  the  present  state  of  affairs — have 
brought  about  this  thing,  and  by  and  by  they  will 
be  as  secure  as  the  soothsayers  of  Rome,  who, 
when  they  met  each  other,  winked  and  laughed 
at  the  delusions  practised  in  an  unsuspecting  peo- 
ple. This  is  the  present  condition  of  things  in 
the  Southern  States,  and  we  arc  called  upon  to 
follow  them.  The  question,  Mr.  President,  is 
whether  Ave  will  recognize  this  as  a  constitution- 
al right.  I  came  here  already  sworn  to  support 
the  Constitution  of  my  country,  and  after  I  came 
I  again  renewed  that  fidelity  and  placed  my 
hand  upon  the  book  and  swore  again  that  I 
would  support  it ;  and  now,  sir,  I  am  ready  to 
say  that  that  instrument  is  the  best  instrument 
ever  devised  for  the  government  of  man.  Sir, 
having  been  born  in  fidelity  to  it — having  thus 
far  enjoyed  prosperity  under  it,  such  as  I  could 
not  have  enjoyed  under  any  other  government  on 
earth — having  thus  far  been  protected  in  my 
rights,  person  and  property— I  love  that  govern- 
ment; I  love  its  flag  that  has  protected  me  and 
mine.  I  look  forward  with  renewed  hope 
to  the  brilliant  prospects  in  the  fu- 
ture, when  I  look  to  the  hallowed  as- 
associations  of  the  past ;  and  I  now  again  renew 
my  faith  in  the  good  of  my  country,  and  no  act 
of  mine,   from  this  day  on,  shall  ever  tend  to 


87 


dissolve  the  union  of  Missouri  with  the  Fed- 
eral Government.  My  mind  has  been  made 
tip.  I  intend,  sir,  so  tar  as  I  am  concerned,  that 
every  right  shall  bo  guaranteed  our  Southern 
friends,  and  that  every  right  shall  be  guaran- 
tied our  Northern  frends,  and  everything 
that  can  be  done  shall  be  done  upon 
my  part  to  restore  alienated  feeling  and 
bring  back  once  more  those  erring  sisters 
that  have  gone  off' in  madness  into  the  path  of 
their  own  destruci ion.  And,  sir,  looking  at  the 
best  interests  of  Missouri — looking  at  my  own 
fealty  to  the  Constitution,  I  can  never  consent  to 
follow. 

Let  us  stand  true.  Do  you  want  them  back 
with  you?  Yes,  says  every  man.  How  are  you 
going  to  get  them?  By  passing  ordinances  of 
secession — by  passing  anything  that  looks  to 
their  encouragement  and  support?  Mr.  Presi- 
dent, no.  There  are  two  sides  to  this  question.  I 
detest  the  action  of  the  Northern  States  that  have 
passed  laws  interfering  with  the  execution  of  the 
Fugitive  Slave  law;  and,  sir,  to  remedy 
that  I  would  have  passed  by  the 
next  Congress  a  law  by  which  every  right  of  a 
citizen  of  the  South  shall  be  guaranteed  to  him. 
I  would  so  amend  that  law  that  when  a  mob  in 
the  Northern  Slates  undertook  to  interfere  with 
the  execution  of  it,  a  penalty  would  be  imposed 
such  as  would  effectually  prevent  such  interfe- 
rence. 

Mr.  Welch.  If  the  gentleman  from  Pike  will 
give  way,  I  will  make  a  motion  to  adjourn. 

Mr.  Henderson.    I  will  give  way. 

Convention  then  adjourned  till  2  p.  m. 

AFTERNOON   SESSION. 

Convention  re- assembled  at  2  o'clock. 

The  Chair.  The  gentleman  from  Pike  has  the 
floor. 

Mr.  Henderson.  Mr.  President,  inasmuch 
as  the  Convention  is  not  at  present  full,  and  there 
will  be  a  constant  movement  in  the  lobby  as  well 
as  the  house,  caused  by  persons  coming  in,  I 
move  that  the  Convention  take  a  recess  until  the 
noise  has  somewhat  subsided— say  fifteen  min- 
utes.   Motion  agreed  to. 

After  recess,  Mr.  Henderson  took  the  floor 
and  spoke  as  follows : 

Mr.  President  :  At  the  time  of  the  adjourn- 
ment of  the  Convention,  after  having  addressed 
myself  to  secession  as  a  legal  and  Constitutional 
right,  not  as  a  revolutionary  right,  I  was  proceed- 
ing to  speak  in  regard  to  what  I  thought  was  at 
the  bottom  of  the  difficulties  of  the  present  day; 
and  now,  lest  I  may  be  misunderstood  upon  this 
subject,  I  desire  to  say  that  all  that  I  have  said  in 
reference  to  secession,  has  been  said  in  reference 
to  it  as  a  legal  right,  and  claimed  to  be  a  peacea- 
ble right  under  the  terms  of  the  Federal  Consti- 
tution.    I  do  not  desire  to  be  misunderstood,  and 


desire  especially  to  apply  the  right  terms,  so  that 
there  can  be  no  misunderstanding  on  the  part 
of  the  people  of  the  State  of  Missouri  in  refer- 
ence to  the  action  of  this  Convention. 

If  secession  be  true,  and  if  there  be  any  gen- 
tleman upon  the  floor  of  this  Convention  who  ap- 
peals to  it  as  a  peaceable  and  successful  remedy 
for  the  redress  of  the  evils  under  our  system  and 
form  of  government,  I  would  like  to  hear  the 
argument  in  favor  of  it.  I  have  under  all  circum- 
stances given  a  patient  hearing  to  every  argu- 
ment addressed  to  me  on  this  subject;  and 
although  I  am  not  disposed  to  announce  myself 
here,  iu  the  language  of  some  gentlemen,  as  a 
base  submissionist,  I  have  talked  so  far  only 
about  a  legal  and  consiitutional  right.  Nothing 
else  have  I  spoken  of  so  far.  Would  it  not  be 
well  for  the  people  of  Missouri,  as  a  matter  of 
principle  upon  this  occasion,  to  adopt  no  line  of 
policy,  to  make  no  declaration  whatever,  that  may 
be  used  in  the  future  as  an  estoppel  against  her 
lights.  If  it  is  expected  of  me  that  iu  voting 
upon  this  floor  I  shall  enforce  a  doctrine  that 
may  in  the  future  be  flaunted  in  my  face  when  I 
am  claiming  a  right  at  the  hands  of  the  Federal 
Government,  it  will  be  expected  in  vain. 

If  secession  be  true,  what  objection  have  you 
to  the  proceedings  of  the  Hartford  Convention? 
No  man  who  held  a  seat  upon  the  floor  of  that 
Convention  is  to-day  willing  to  let  his  name  be 
known  before  the  American  people.  If  secession 
be  true,  why  were  not  the  people  of  those  States 
exclusively  engaged  in  commercial  pursuits, 
whose  property,  Avhose  wealth,  whose  prosperity 
depended  not  upon  the  establishment  of  embar- 
goes upon  their  commerce— but  depended  exclu- 
sively upon  the  open  navigation  of  the  seas  and 
speedy  termination  of  a  war  that  was  ruining 
their  best  interests— tell  me,  if  this  doctrine  be 
true,  why  they  were  not  right,  in  consulting  their 
interests,  and  meeting  together  upon  the  floor  of 
that  Convention  with  the  view  to  separate  them- 
selves from  the  Federal  Government? 

Is  it  not  wrorthy,  then,  the  consideration  of  Mis- 
sourians  that  we  adopt  nothing  as  a  principle 
that  may  conflict  with  our  interests  in  the  future, 
or  that  may  be  used,  even  by  the  demagogue, 
for  the  ultimate  extermination  of  the  liberties 
of  this  country.  Sir,  under  the  Constitution, 
which  is  the  chart  of  my  liberty  and  yours, 
the  power  to  declare  war  has  been  delegated 
to  Congress;  but  if  the  doctrine  of  secession, 
as  a  peaceable  remedy,  be  true,  Congress 
may  declare  wTar,  and  in  the  midst  of 
hostilities  with  the  combined  powers  of  Europe, 
I  understand  that  any  State  in  the  American 
Union,  looking  forward  to  its  own  exclusive  in- 
terests, to  the  utter  overthrow  of  the  interest  of 
every  other  State  of  the  Union,  has  a  right  to 
-vithdraw  itself  from  the  Federal  Union,  and 
leave  the  burden  of  war  upon  its  brothers.    Not 


88 


only  so,  hut  they  have  the  right  to  say,  and  that 
peaceably,  too,  although  Congress  possesses  the 
power  to  levy  taxes  necessary  to  its  continuance, 
or  the  payment  of  the  debt  that  may  be  contracted 
thereby,  that  they  will  not  share  with  their  sister 
States  in  the  payment  of  an  honest  obligation. 
Sir,  if  this  doctrine  be  true,  one-half  of  the  States 
in  the  midst  of  a  desolating  war  with  Europe 
may  withdraw  from  the  American  Confederacy, 
and  leave  the  remaining  States  to  be  subjugated 
by  the  hand  of  power.  Is  this  so?  Is  it  not 
necessary  that  we  should  look  to  such  a  result  as 
possible,  and  perhaps  probable,  in  the  future? 

But  a  few  days  ago  I  noticed  an  article  in 
a  London  paper  announcing  to  the  American 
people  that  the  treaty  of  Paris  would  not  be  re- 
spected according  to  its  obvious  import  and 
meaning  in  regard  to  the  blockade  of  ports,  be- 
cause of  the  fact  that  it  would  militate  against 
the  interest  of  Great  Britain  and  France;  and 
that,  although  Great  Britain,  with  the  States 
of  America  united,  would  be  compelled  to  respect 
in  the  proper  spirit  treaties  made,  yet  when  our 
Government  was  shattered  and  torn  to  atoms, 
they  were  under  no  obligations  to  respect  the 
technical  wording  of  a  treaty  to  their  own  lasting 
injury.  It  may  be  well  for  the  members  of  this 
Convention— it  may  be  well  for  the  people  of 
Missouri — to  look  to  this  thing,  and  adopt  no 
principle  that  in  the  future  maybe  argued  against 
our  own  rights. 

Congress  possesses  the  power  to  levy  impost 
duties ;  but,  sir,  if  this  right  be  a  peaceable  and 
constitutional  right,  any  State  of  the  Union  may 
consult  its  own  whims,  or  its  own  cupidity,  in 
withdrawing  from  the  American  Union — any 
State  may  open  its  ports  to  the  commerce  of  the 
world,  and  carry  on  a  contraband  trade  against 
the  interests  of  the  remaining  States.  If  this  doc- 
trine be  true,  that  Fugitive  Slave  Law  which  has 
been  passed  for  the  protection  of  Southern  inter- 
ests, may  be  set  at  defiance  by  any  Northern 
State,  and  the  people  of  Missouri  dare  not,  after 
having  adopted  secession  as  a  remedy,  complain 
against  the  contrary  views  of  their  Northern 
neighbors.  Then,  is  it  not  the  highest  duty  of 
the  people  of  this  State  to  look  well  to  every  de- 
claration of  principle  thattfiey  may  lay  down  in 
this  Convention? 

But,  aside  from  it  as  a  Constitutional  question, 
I  propose,  sir,  to  examine  it  as  a  question  of  ex- 
pediency and  propriety  on  the  part  of  the  people 
of  this  State.  "What  is  the  difficulty  now  exist- 
ing? It  is,  as  I  am  told,  the  insecurity  of  slave 
property.  Is  that  true  ?  Then  do  you  propose 
that  this  Mississippi  river,  that  rolls  by  your  city, 
shall  become  the  boundary  line  between  Missouri 
and  the  Northern  Confederacy,  in  order  to  pro- 
tect slave  property?  Can  this  be  urged  wirh  any 
degree  of  reason  ?  I  am  told  by  gentlemen,  and 
some  of  them  in  high  quarters,  (even  the  Govern- 


or of  the  State  of  Missouri,  in  my  presence,  the 
other  evening,  so  said,)  that  treaties  may  secure, 
and  will  secure,  that  which  country,  good  neigh- 
borhood, respect  for  the  Constitution  and  laws  of 
the  land,  that  which  common  interest  and  com- 
mon destiny  will  not  grant  to  the  people  of  the 
State. 

How  close  are  the  ties  that  bind  England  and 
America.  There  is  a  common  parentage — there 
is  a  common  and  mutual  interest.  There  is  eve- 
rything based  upon  commercial  relations  or  good 
neighborhood  between  two  countries,  to  justify  us 
in  exacting  from  Great  Britain  the  recognition  to 
us  of  every  right.  Tell  me,  then,  why  it  is  that 
the  fugiiive  slave  in  Canada  is  now  secure.  Why 
tlon't  these  gentlemen  make  treaties  with  Great 
Britain?  Why  is  it,  with  our  interests  tied  to- 
gether as  they  are,  that  England,  dependant  as 
she  is,  in  the  language  of  our  Southern  sisters 
who  have  seceded,  upon  King  Cotton,  has  never 
yet  granted,  and  never  will  grant,  the  rendition 
of  a  fugitive  slave?  Standing  upon  the  old  doc- 
trine of  her  statesmen  and  her  poets,  that  when- 
ever a  man  touches  her  consecrated  soil  his  shack- 
les fall,  and  he  stands  forth  redeemed,  regener- 
ated and  disenthralled,  she  tells  the  nations  of 
the  world  that  that  is  her  only  ultimatum 
in  regard  to  questions  of  this  character— that  no 
matter  how  long  a  man  may  have  been  a  slave — 
no  matter  how  intimate  the  relations  between 
Great  Britian  and  the  country  from  which  the 
man  has  come,  yet  when  he  touches  her  conse- 
crated soil,  he  becomes  free  as  his  master.  Is  it 
true  that  it  would  be  better  to  separate  from  our 
Northern  friends,  and  erect  a  Southern  Confede- 
racy, and  look  to  the  protection  of  England, 
France  and  Russia,  for  those  rights  that  are  de- 
nied to  us  in  this  happy  Government  of  ours  ?  Is 
that  true  ?  If  so,  let  me  ask  you,  one  moment,  as 
to  the  probabilities,  if  you  please,  of  securing  trea- 
ties that  will  acomplish  the  ends  that  you  design 
to  acomplish.  Are  these  men  so  hostile  to  slave- 
ry— are  they  so  much  arrayed  in  feeling  and 
in  principle  against  the  institutions  of 
the  State  of  Missouri,  that  even  now,  with  every 
inducement  leading  thereto,  they  will  not  render 
to  us  that  which  belongs  to  us?  If 
so,  wdien  once  j-ou  have  dissolved  the  ties 
between  the  North  and  the  South— (can  any 
be  dearer  between  independent  nations  than  those 
which  bind  together  England  and  America?) — 
can  you  expect  to  secure  by  a  treaty  a  right  that 
is  now  denied?  I  say  no.  Every  gentleman  upon 
this  floor  will  say  to  himself  that  it  is  an  utter 
impossibility  that  such  a  treaty  can  be  made. 

Again,  is  this  the  only  question  that  is  likely  to 
arise  between  independent  nations?  Why,  sir, 
the  very  moment  that  the  separation  is 
once  effected,  all  those  causes  that  have 
heretofore  divided,  and  brought  on  hostile  collis- 
ion between  the  adjacent  States  will  of  course  ex- 


89 


sit  between  the  people  of  the  North  and  South. 
Tiie  very  elements  of  our  present  prosperity 
will  prove  to  be  our  destruction.  This  mag- 
nificent river,  rising  in  the  lakes  of  the 
North,  its  waters  passing  between  the 
Northern  and  Southern  soil,  and  emptying  itself 
in  the  great  ocean  South  of  us,  that  eanics  the 
commerce  of  the  Union  upon  its  bosom— the 
Ohio  river  that  floats  the  commerce  of  many  of 
the  wealthiest  and  most  powerful  States 
— these  two  streams  of  themselves  are  sufficient 
to  bring  on  hostile  collisions  between  the  inde- 
pendent republics  that  will  end  in  the  destruction 
of  one  or  the  other.  Although  this  separation 
may  be  peaceable,  (and  God  grant,  if  it  is  to 
come,  that  it  may  be  peaceable,  and  all  that  I 
can  do  shall  be  devoted  to  that  end,)  you  may 
avoid  war  for  the  first  year  or  two,  yet  no  man 
can  close  his  eyes  to  the  fact  that  war  of  the  most 
direful  character  will  soon  spring  up,  and  that 
war  will  not  be  terminated  until  every  material 
and  social  interest  of  this  country  has  been 
buried  beneath  its  ravages.  It  is  inevitable.  Com- 
mercial questions,  the  making  of  treaties,  all  of 
the  contracts  that  must  necessarily  exist  between 
independent  republics,  must  exist  between  these, 
and  if  we  find  occasion,  upon  the  interpretation  of 
words  in  a  treaty,  to  go  to  war  with  foreign  na- 
tions, why  is  it  not  likely  that  the  same  state  of 
things  will  be  brought  on  between  the  different 
portions  of  this  now  happy  country? 

It  may  do  for  the  gentlemen  not  interested  in 
this  species  of  property  to  tell  me,  as  they  have 
told  me,  that  my  property  is  more  secure  within 
fifteen  hundred  yards  of  the  soil  of  an  independ- 
ent republic,  but  I  believe  it  not.  I  do  not  believe 
that  men  who  are  interested  in  property  of  this 
character  would  believe  it;  and  though  I  must 
listen  to  an  argument  of  this  sort,  though  I  am 
giving  ear  to  it,  I  never  can  give  credence  to 
it,  and  never  can  I  be  convinced  of  the  propriety 
of  it  until  it  has  been  tried  and  demonstrated  by 
experience  to  be  the  true  and  correct  doctrine 
upon  the  subject. 

But  we  are  told  that  property  is  insecure  in  this 
countiy.  Just  one  word  in  regard  to  that,  if  you 
phase.  I  am  willing  to  admit,  and  I  do  admit, 
and  not  only  do  I  admit,  but  I  now  take  occasion 
to  say,  that,  for  many  years,  in  the  Northern 
States,  a  dangerous  feeling  has  been  growing  up 
antagonistic  to  the  institutions  of  the  South. 
The  Republican  party  has  been  supported  by 
men  who  have  enunciated  heresies  dangerous  to 
the  rights  of  the  South,  and  the  Republican 
party  must  get  rid  of  that  class  of  men.  They 
must  divest  themselves  of  them  forever  and  ever, 
or  else,  in  my  honest  judgment,  if  their  views 
are  carried  out,  we  may  not  be  asked  to  resort  to 
secession  as  a  constitutional  remedy,  but  may  be 
compelled  to  resort  to  the  more  dangerous  doc- 
trine of  revolution. 


I  am  not  afraid,  sir,  to  announce  the  proposi- 
tion that,  if  the  doctrines  of  Wendell  Phillips 
and  Lloyd  Garrison  are  to  be  the  doctrines  of  this 
country,  and  the  slave  population  of  the  Southern 
States  should  be  turned  loose  by  Federal  en- 
actments, I  do  not  hesitate  to  say,  nor  I  do 
suppose  the  people  of  the  State  of  Missouri 
would  hesitate  a  moment  to  say,  that  in  that 
case  it  would  be  better  to  resort  to  the  revolu- 
tionary right — the  last  resort  of  injured  man — 
and  right  themselves  at  the  point  or  the  bayo- 
net. 

But,  unfortunately,  Mr.  President,  we  find  the 
extremes  to  meet.  Garrison  and  Wendell  Phil- 
lips are  upon  the  same  platform  with  Rhett  and 
Yancey.  They  all  claim  that  secession  is 
a  nsht;  while  Garrison  and  Phillips 
say  they  rejoice  that  secession  has  taken 
place  because  it  is  the  death-knell  of  slavery  in 
this  country.  The  only  difference  between  them 
is,  that  Yancey  and  Rhett  say  they  have  resorted 
to  it  for  the  protection  of  slavery.  They  agree 
upon  the  means,  though  they  differ  as  to  the  re- 
sults to  flow  from  the  doctrine.  Sir,  the  Repub- 
lican party  have  announced  in  their  platforms 
doctrines  that  they  must  not  and  cannot  stand  to. 
They  must  leave  them.  They  have  upon  many 
occasions  announced  doctrines  that,  in  the  legis- 
lation of  the  country,  they  do  not  propose  to 
stand  to. 

Whilst  I  am  upon  this  part  of  my  subject,  per- 
mit me  to  make  one  other  remark.  We  are  here 
for  the  purpose  of  reconciling  conflicting  inter- 
ests. We  are  here  for  the  purpose  of  telling  the 
truth.  We  are  here  for  the  purpose  of  calling 
up  the  wrongs  of  all  sections  of  the  country, 
and  applying  the  remedy  to  redress  them,  if  we 
possibly  can.  Are  we  guilty  of  no  wrong  ?  Have 
we,  as  Southern  men,  done  nothing  that  was 
wrong,  and  do  we  come  before  the  American  peo- 
ple to  say  that  all  the  sectionalism  is  in  the 
North,  and  the  South  has  never  been  guilty  of 
anything  that  conflicts  with  or  militates  against 
the  general  good  of  the  country? 

I  am  aware,  sir,  judging  by  what  has  been 
done  heretofore,  that  from  the  utterances  that  I 
have  made  to-day,  and  will  yet  make,  some  gen- 
tlemen will  be  pleased  to  call  me  a  Black  Repub- 
lican. Mr.  President,  I  never  yet  have  cast  a 
vote  for  a  man  claiming  to  be  a  Republican ;  and 
unless  their  views  upon  this  slavery  question  shall 
be  changed,  so  that  they  are  no  longer  the 
party  of  the  present  day,  I  expect  never 
to  cast  a  vote  for  one.  But,  sir,  I  have 
my  rights  in  this  country,  and  if  the  Republican 
party  arc  Union  men,  all  I  can  say  is  that  I  will 
not  abandon  the  Union  because  they  cling  to  it. 
No,  sir;  that  is  not  my  policy,  and  I  do  not  in- 
tend to  adopt  it. 

At  Charleston,  my  remembrance  is,  as  I  stated 
this  morning,  that  I  took  a  position  that  was  in- 


90 


dorsed  by  the  people  of  Missouri;  and  what  was 
it?  It  was  that  the  institution  of  slavery,  not- 
withstanding Federal  laws  of  an  unconstitutional 
character,  will  go  into  Territories  where  the 
soil  and  climate  invite  it;  that  the  Territories 
of  the  American  Union  ought  to  he  thrown 
open  to  settlement  by  Northern  and  Southern 
men,  that  all  might  go  there  and  slave  proper- 
ty be  recognised  under  the  Constitution,  until 
they  themselves  should  agree  to  exclude  it, 
finding  it  to  be  unprofitable  under  sui*rounding 
circumstances.  Why,  now,  shall  I  abandon  that 
doctrine?  Have  not  the  people  of  the  State  of 
Missouri  indorsed  it?  But  it  was  alleged  there 
that  a  great  sectional  party  in  this  country  was 
about  to  get  the  reins  of  Government,  and  as 
an  offset  to  that  party  another  great  sectional 
party  must  be  built  up  in  the  Southern  States. 
One  party  claimed,  wrongfully,  as  I  think,  that 
the  Federal  Government  ought  to  exclude  slavery 
from  the  Territories.  Another  party  took  the 
ground  that  slavery  must  bz  protected  by  the 
Federal  Government.  Upon  that  issue— a  com- 
promise between  extremes— wo  went  be  "ore  the 
people  of  the  State  of  Missouri,  and  the'  people 
indorsed  our  course,  and  in  the  election  of  dele- 
gates to  this  Convention  they  have  once  more  in- 
dorsed it.  They  have  indorsed  the  proposition 
that  so  long  as  the  policy  of  the  Government 
should  be  in  accordance  with  the  platform  there 
adopted,  they  arc  satisfied  to  remain  in  this  Con- 
federacy. 

But  another  proposition  suggests  itself  to  me. 
There  was  another  party  in  the  State  of  Missouri, 
and  I  refer  to  these  things  in  order  to  see  how  far 
the  public  mind  has  been  driven  from  the  position 
it  occupied  four  or  five  months  ago.  In  view  of 
the  disruption  of  the  Democratic  party  at  Charles- 
ton and  Baltimore,  I  understand  that  the  Ameri- 
can party,  as  it  was  called,  anticipated  that  some 
difficulty  might  arise  in  the  affairs  of  the  Govern- 
ment, that  some  obstacle  would  be  presented  to 
the  enforcement  of  the  laws,  and  they  met  to- 
gether at  Baltimore,  and  decided  what?  That 
they  were  in  favor  of  the  Union,  the  Constitution 
and  the  enforcement  of  the  laws.  Where  now  is 
that  American  party?  Does  it  j^et  live?  That 
party  that  cast  about  an  equal  number  of  votes 
with  the  Douglas  men  in  the  State? 

Are  they  yet  true  and  firm  to  the  platform  upon 
which  they  fought  the  canvass  of  last  November? 
If  so,  I  wish  to  know  whether  they  can,  upon  tin's 
occasion,  back  out  from  the  position  they  assum- 
ed, and  which  was  inculcated  upon  the  honest 
yeomanry  of  the  country  ?  I  apprehend  not.  Sec- 
tionalism has  taken  possession  of  this  country. 
That  is  the  true  theory  of  the  anticipated  diffi- 
culties now  before  us.  It  is  not  from  wrongs  that 
we  are  now  suffering,  is  it?  Surely  not.  As  I 
understand  it,  the  Democratic  party  and  the 
American  party  of  this  country,  but  a  few  years 


ago,  when  in  the  majority  in  the  Government 
adopted  the  doctrine  contained  in  the  compro- 
mise measures  of  1850,  in  regard  to  the  Territor- 
ial questions.  It  is  true,  that  the  Republican 
party,  during  their  canvass,  advocated  the 
right  and  duty  of  the  Government  to 
exclude  slavery  from  the  Territories.  So  soon  as 
they  come  into  poAver,  however,  they  pass  three 
territorial  bills  abjuring  their  own  doctrine,  and 
coming  up  to  the  doctrine  laid  down  by  Henry 
Clay  in  1850 — the  same  doctrine  that  was  incor- 
porated in  the  Kansas-Nebraska  measure — leav- 
ing the  people  in  the  Territories  to  settle  this 
difficult  question  for  themselves.  There  is  not  to- 
day a  single  law  upon  the  statute  books  of  the 
Federal  Government  denying  the  right  of  a  citi- 
zen to  enter  into  any  territory  belonging  to  the 
Union.  Then  there  is  not  a  real  grievance  upon 
that  question,  but  the  anticipated  grievance  that 
may  hereafter  come. 

Since  the  present  Congress  has  met,  and  in  fact 
since  the  secession  of  a  portion  of  the  Southern 
States,  if  I  am  not  incorrectly  informed  upon  the 
subject,  a  proposition  has  been  adopted  by  North- 
ern States,  by  a  majority  of  Republican  members 
of  both  Houses  of  Congress,  by  which  an  amend- 
ment is  to  be  engrafted  upon  the  Federal  Consti- 
tution, to  the  effect  that  that  instrument  shall 
never  be  so  amended  as  to  permit  Congress  to  in- 
terfere with  the  institution  of  slavery  in  any  State 
without  the  consent  of  every  State  in  the  Union. 
If  that  be  so,  it  is  now  in  our  power  at  least  to 
close  this  difficult  question  for  ever  and  ever. 
Then  let  our  southern  sisters  come  back  into  the 
Union.  New  York,  New  Jersey,  Pennsylvania, 
yea,  Rhode  Island,  Massachusetts  and  Maine, 
and  even  Vermont,  will  vote  for  the  proposition, 
and  let  amity  and  that  concord  and  that  spirit  of 
conciliation  and  harmony  once  more  reign  in  this 
government  that  has  been  unnecessarily  destroyed 
of  late. 

Now,  Mr.  President,  one  word  in  regard  to  this 
report  and  I  am  done.  I  am  aware  that  men  of 
all  parties  are  in  this  Convention.  It  becomes 
our  duty,  sir,  to  do  something  to  remove  the 
apparent  fears  of  the  people.  So  far  as  I  am 
concerned,  I  have  no  fear  whatever  that  the 
dogmas  of  the  Abolition  party  will  ever  find  a 
place  upon  the  statute  books  of  this  country. 
Never,  sir,  never!  If  it  be  their  design  to  make 
the  white  and  black  races  of  this  country  equal, 
why,  let  me  ask,  are  they  not  placed  upon  an 
equality  in  Massachusetts,  Vermont  and  New 
Hampshire,  to-day?  Why  is  it,  where  they  have 
the  power,  that  they  do  not  put  the  negro 
upon  an  equality  with  the  white  man?  We  all 
know  that  it  is  not  so.  My  impression  is,  and  I 
give  it  merely  as  my  impression,  that  tho 
combination  of  conservative  Republicans, 
with  the  extreme  and  radical  Abolition- 
ists, has    upon    the    present  occasion    worked 


91 


out  all  the  effects  and  consequences  that  it 
was  ever  intended  to  do.  The  object  and 
design  was  to  put  out  of  power  one  party  and 
put  into  power  another.  Parties  are  often  radi- 
cal in  the  acquisition  of  power:  but  when  they 
come  to  administer  the  government,  they  wilJ 
moderate  their  desires,  and  act  not  unlike  Mr. 
Filinorc,  when  he  was  appealed  to  by  his  friends 
to  know  whether  he  had  not  abandoned  his  views 
upon  the  negro  question,  when  he  said  that  the 
Fugitive  Slave  Law  should  be  executed  in  the 
streets  of  Boston — though  they  ran  red  with  hu- 
man blood — and  he  ansAvered  that  whilst  he  an- 
nounced different  opinions,  he  was  a  member  of 
Congress  from  the  Buffalo  District,  but  he  was 
now  in  power  as  President  of  the  United  States, 
and  had  sworn  to  support  the  Constitution  and 
the  laws  passed  in  pursuance  thereof,  and  that 
was  all  the  answer  he  had  to  giA-e. 

Sir,  parties  may  be  extreme  in  their  vieAvs  in 
the  acquisition  of  poAvcr,  but  in  the  administra- 
tion of  it  they  have  to  obey  a  written  charter  of 
right;  they  have  to  confine  themselves  Avithin  the 
limits  of  the  law,  and  when  that  is  the  case  Ave 
need  haA-c  no  fears  AvhateArer. 

Again,  gentlemen  are  often  too  prone  to  apply 
the  terms,  Republicans  and  secessionists.  I  haA'e 
heard  them  rung  from  one  end  of  the  State  to 
the  other.  I  have  heard  much  said  about  that 
subject;  and  the  man  Avho  talks  about  compro- 
mise, sometimes  is  denounced  readily  as  a  Black 
Republican.  When  I  hear  that  term  applied  to 
men  Avho  are  thus  desirous  of  compromising  our 
unfortunate  difficulties,  it  is  but  an  indication  to 
me  that  the  party  using  the  term  has  secession 
proclivities.  You  may  rely  upon  it,  because  it  is 
essential  for  men  who  are  in  faAror  of  compro- 
mise, to  plant  themselves  on  a  platform  upon 
which  all  present  difficulties  can  be  adjusted,  and 
this,  of  course,  is  in  direct  opposition  to  the  pol- 
icy of  the  secessionists. 

Mr.  President,  I  Avas  a  member  of  the  Commit 
tee  who  drew  up  this  report.  I  Avent  upon  the 
committee  determined  to  do  everything  within 
my  power  to  bring  about  a  state  of  feeling  in 
this  Convention,  and  before  the  people  of 
the  State,  that  would  forever  and  ever 
put  a  quietus  upon  this  thing  of  seces- 
sion or  reA-olution  for  our  present  ills;  and 
in  doing  so,  it  is  necessarily  the  case  that  some- 
thing has  gone  into  that  report  that  has  not  my 
approval  or  cordial  co-operation.  I  apprehend 
that,  out  of  thirteen  men  who  composed  that 
committee,  there  is  not  a  single  member  Avho 
gives  his  concurrence  to  e\Tcry  line  and  every 
letter  and  every  feature  of  the  report.  I  have  no 
idea  of  that,  nor  Can  I  for  a  moment  imagine 
that  you  can  find  two  members  of  the  Conven- 
tion, to-day,  AA'ho,  if  left  to  themselves,  would 
have  used  the  exact  language  of  the  report. 
But,  Mr.   President,  I  understand  that  we  came 


here  for  the  purpose  of  restoring  peace  and 
quiet  to  the  country,  and,  if  possible,  arresting 
the  progress  of  thi i  rcA-olution  that  must  inevi- 
tably engulf  us  all  in  ruin  unless  it  be  speed- 
ily checked.  Then,  sir,  I  desired  that  that  report 
should  enunciate  no  doctrine  in  conflict  Avith  the 
Constitution  of  the  country— that  it  should  enun- 
ciate no  principle  that  may  hereafter  estop  the 
people  of  Missouri  from  claiming  their  just  rights 
in  this  Confederacy;  that  nothing  inimical  to  the 
Union  of  these  States  should  appear  in  it,  aud  I 
feel  satisfied  that  such  is  the  case.  I  regret  ex- 
ceedingly that  it  Avas  thought  fit  by  any  gentle- 
man to  undertake  an  amendment  to  it.  I  will 
state  one  circumstance  in  connection  with  the 
action  of  the  Committee,  in  order  to  show  the 
great  reason  on  the  part  of  members  of  this 
ConAremion  Avhy  avc  should,  if  Ave  can,  A^ote  for 
the  report  as  it  is.  TI13  Committee  of  Thirteen 
adopted  a  resolution  Avhich  stool  adopted  to  the 
satisfaction  of  every  member  of  the  committee 
for  at  least  two  days,  when  it  Avas  discovered  that 
the  peculiar  Avordiag  of  the  resolution  contained 
an  implication  of  the  right  of  secession.  It  Avas 
then  thought  proper  to  amend  it,  and  it  was 
amended.  An  amendment  to  the  resolutions 
Avhich  are  noAv  before  you  may  b3  offered,  and 
read  by  the  Clerk,  and  at  first  blush  every  man 
may  think  it  is  perfectly  right,  and  in  accordance 
with  his  OAAm  views;  but,  sir,  upon  proper  reflec- 
tion, it  may  even  appear  to  the  mind  of  the  mover 
himself  that  it  Avould  be  extremely  dangerous  to 
adopt  it.  And  so  in  regard  to  this  report;  it 
seems  to  me  that  it  is  so  avcII  worded  and  exe- 
cuted in  every  respect  as  to  admit  of  no  amend- 
ment Avithout  lessening  its  merits  and  injuring  its 
harmony.  If  Ave  can  adopt  the  report  as  it  is,  I 
should  be  extremely  glad. 

Sir,  Ave  oavo  a  duty  to  ourselves  and  to  the 
country  at  large.  I  see  that  Virginia  has  refused 
the  very  proposition  offered  by  my  friend  from 
Clay,  [Mr.  Moss]  and  I  regret  exceedingly  that 
so  good  a  Union  man  as  he  is  should  haA-e 
thought  fit  to  offer  an  amendment  which,  in  my 
honest  opinion,  destroys  the  Avhole  harmony  and 
beauty  of  that  report,  if  it  possesses  any.  I  ex- 
tremely regret  that  any  apparent  ultimatum 
should  be  attempted  to  be  laid  down  by 
the  people  of  Missouri  on  this  occasion.  I  re. 
gret  that  the  declaration  should  be  made  by  Mis- 
souri, that  her  fate  is  dependent  upon  the  non-en- 
forcement of  the  laAArs  of  this  country.  Sir,  Avhy 
the  necessity  of  such  a  declaration?  We  desire 
that  existing  difficulties  should  be  settled.  We 
have  said  that  Missouri  is  opposed  to  an  attempt 
on  the  part  of  the  Federal  Government  to  coerce 
the  seceding  States  into  submission.  And  here 
let  me  say  one  word  further.  Has  it  ever  been 
supposed,  by  any  member  of  this  ConA'ention,  that 
any  man  could  be  elected  President  of  the  United 
States  Avho  could  so  far  disregard  his  duties  under 


92 


the  Constitution  and  forget  the  obligation 
of  his  oath  as  to  undertake  the  subju- 
gation of  the  Southern  States  by  military 
force  ?  Will  the  abstract  principle  of  the  enforce- 
ment of  the  laws  ever  be  carried  by  the  Presi- 
dent of  the  United  States  under  existing  circum- 
stances to  the  extent  of  military  subjugation? 
If  so,  then  you  might  as  well  declare  that 
this  Government  is  at  an  end.  Will  you  tell 
me  whether,,  in  your  opinion,  Mr.  Lincoln  will 
send  down  Don  Quixottes  into  the  Southern 
States  to  go  around  amongst  the  people  with 
military  power  at  their  command  and  subjugate 
them  or  redress  wrongs  amongst  them?  Cer- 
tainly not.  My  understanding  is  that  before  you 
can  enforce  a  law  you  must  have  an  adjudication 
upon  it;  that  the  process  must  be  put  in  the  hands 
of  the  marshal  or  other  officer  charged  with 
executing  it.  Then,  if  violence  be  interposed, 
of  course  it  is  the  right  and  duty  of  the  Federal 
Executive  to  see  that  the  decrees  of  the  courts  are 
enforced.  But  is  there  any  gentleman  now  afraid 
of  anything  of  that  sort  in  the  seceding  Slates  ?  I 
apprehend  not.  I  understand  there  is  no  Federal 
Courts  there.  I  understand  there  arc  no  Federal 
officers  to  execute  the  law;  and  he  who  dreams 
that  this  government  was  made  or  intended  to 
subjugate  any  one  of  the  States,  dreams  certainly 
against  the  spirit,  against  the  intent,  and  against 
the  whole  scope  of  our  institutions.  But  some 
gentlemen  may  say,  it  requires  no  adjudication 
to  enforce  the  revenue  laws,  and  it  will  be  Mr. 
Lincoln's  duty  to  send  amongst  the  South- 
ern people  Collectors  of  ports,  in  order  to 
collect  the  revenue.  One  word  in  regard  to 
that.  Is  there  now  a  law  of  Congress,  (I  confess 
I  am  not  familiar  with  the  laws  of  Congress  suffi- 
ciently to  speak  with  certainty  upon  this  subject, 
but  I  appeal  to  gentlemen  in  this  Convention, 
whose  duty  it  has  been  to  examine  them,)  under 
which  Abraham  Lincoln  can  even  collect  the  rev- 
enues at  the  Southern  ports  ?  As  I  understand  it, 
the  revenues  must  be  collected  within  the  ports  at 
the  custom  house;  and  if  that  be  true,  the  Feder- 
al officers  having  resigned,  the  Federal  Executive 
has  no  more  p  ^wer  to  use  force  than  either  you  or  I. 
Then  why  this  extreme  desire  to  express  upon  the 
part  of  Missouri  a  design  that  under  no  circum- 
stances will  she  lend  means  or  money  to  the  en- 
forcement of  the  laws  by  the  Federal  Govern- 
ment. I  desire  to  give  no  encouragement  to  the 
Northern  fanatics  in  the  commission  of  wrongs 
upon  the  people  of  this  State.  I  desire  to  give  no 
encouragement  to  those  men  in  the  south  who 
have  seen  fit  either  to  nullify  or  set  at  defiance 
the  laws  of  Congress — who,  in  my  honest  judg- 
ment have  violated  the  great  principle  of  constitu- 
tional law,  and  who,  if  they  persist  in  their 
course,  must  bring  ruin  upon  us. 

I  desire  that  our  differences  shall  be  compro- 
mised, and  although  there  are  gentlemen  upon  the 


floor  of  this  Convention  who  are  unwilling  to  vote 
for  the  Crittendon  Compromise,  I  appeal  to  them 
as  Union  men,  inasmuch  as,  if  slavery  is  permit- 
ted to  go  into  the  territories  north  of  the  line  of 
36 :30,  it  will  yet  not  go  there,  being  prevented  in 
my  judgment  by  climate,  soil  and  production.  If 
it  is  permitted  South  of  that  line,  and  the  Fed- 
eral Government  be  pledged  to  protect  it,  gentle- 
men in  this  Convention  will  not  surely  do  vio- 
lence to  their  feelings  or  their  party  attach- 
ments in  assenting  to  this  position,  and  putting 
themselves  on  the  same  basis  of  compromise  with 
the  border  States.  If  the  interests  of  the  people 
South  of  that  line  demand  it,  let  it  go.  Sir,  it  is 
necessary  that  those  States  should  remain  in 
the  Union.  It  is  necessary  for  the  peace  and 
quiet,  and  welfare  of  the  people  of  this  great  na- 
tion, for  all  future  time,  that  this  unnatural  rev- 
olution should  be  arrested,  and  time  be  given  to 
the  people  in  the  North  and  in  the  South,  to 
free  themselves  from  the  influence  of  demagogues 
and  to  shake  off  the  shackles  that  have  been 
placed  upon  them,  and  rise  above  party  maligni- 
ty and  party  feeling,  and  again  adjust  all  differ- 
ences as  our  forefathers  adjusted  them  in  the  for- 
mation of  the  Constitution.  There  is  a  way  un- 
der that  instrument  to  remedy  every  evil.  Are 
you  yet  satisfied  of  the  incapacity  of  man  to 
govern  himself?  Are  you  yet  satisfied  that  this 
idea  laid  down  by  an  illustrious  ancestry  is 
all  a  delusion  and  a  cheat?  I  trust,  Mr.  Presi- 
dent, the  members  of  this  Convention  are  not 
disposed  to  abandon  that  great  bulwark  of  hu- 
man liberty — the  right,  the  power  and  capacity 
of  the  people  for  self-government.  If  there  be 
any  grievances  in  the  South,  the}r  will  be  reme- 
died by  the  patriotic  legions  of  the  North.  If 
there  be  any  grievances  in  the  North,  we  can 
guarantee  that  the  patriotic  legions  of  the  South 
will  come  to  their  rescue  and  redress  them.  Then 
let  us  talk  as  patriots,  and  not  as  partisans. 

Sir,  there  are  periods  in  the  history  of  every 
nation  when  every  man  should  be  willing  to  sink 
the  partisan  in  the  patriot*  I  know  that  I  have 
been  a  partisan,  perhaps  of  the  straightest  sect; 
but,  sir,  I  now  come  before  the  representatives  of 
a  happy  people — I  come  before  the  freemen  of 
Missouri,  who  owe  all  that  we  are  worth  upon 
earth  to  that  Union  that  our  fathers  made — I 
come  before  them  and  say  that,  for  the  time  be- 
ing, I  care  not  what  may  have  been  the  antece- 
dents of  any  man,  I  am  willing  to  bury 
the  weapons  of  party  strife,  and  do  all  that  I 
can  to  preserve  this  Union.  I  am 
interested  in  slave  property  in  Missouri.  I  am 
interested  in  land  property  and  other  species  of 
property,and  let  me  say  to  you  that,  in  all  candor 
as  a  man,  I  this  day  would  most  freely  and  wil- 
lingly lay  upon  the  altar  of  my  country  every 
dollar  that  I  am  possessed  of  upon  this  earth  in 
order  to  be  satisfied  that  my  country  is  safe.    I, 


93 


sir,  in  the  spirit  of  love  for  the  institutions  of 
America— in  the  spirit  of  devotion  and  attach- 
ment to  that  flag  that  has  given  honored  protec- 
tion and  character  to  the  American  citizen  in 
every  land  and  on  every  sea— would  gladly  lay 
down  all  that  I  have,  and  start  anew  in  the  world, 
could  I  thereby  preserve  the  Union  and  perpetu- 
ate the  best  hopes  of  man. 

The  Chair.  The  question  will  be  on  the  adop- 
tion of  the  amendment  of  the  gentleman  from 
Clay. 

Mr.  Henderson.  Mr.  President,  I  rise  to  a 
privileged  question.  My  attention  has  been  called 
to  an  article  which  appeared  in  the  Sunday 
Herald.    I  will  read  it. 

The  Convention  Printing.— The  Convention's 
Committee  on  Printing  appears  to  have  assumed 
that  the  Republican  office  is  the  only  printing  es- 
tablishment in  St.  Louis,  for  we  do  not  hear  that  it 
asked  for  Lids  from  other  offices,  or  even  applied  to 
others  to  have  the  Convention  Printing  done.  The 
Committee  accepted  Geo.  Knapp  &  Co.'s  proposi- 
tion at  once,  and  reported  it  to  the  Convention,  as 
though  Geo.  Knapp  &  Co.  ought  by  right  to  have 
the  job,  without  giving  others  even  a  chance  for  it. 
We  had  some  difficulty  to-day  in  procuring  a  copy 
of  the  Committee  on  Federal  Relations,  because  it  had 
to  be  hurried  off  to  the  Republican  office  to  be  offi- 
cially printed.  Through  the  courtesy  of  the  Secre- 
tary, however,  we  managed  to  be  able  to  lay  it 
before  our  readers.— [Evening  N*W§; 

"We  take  occasion  to  add  to  the  above  by  saying 
that  the  Chairman  of  the  Convention,  Hon.  Sterling 
Price,  did  not  place  Hon.  John  Henderson  on  the 
Committee  on  Printing,  because  Mr.  Lowe,  the  Sec- 
retary of  the  Convention,  informed  him  that  Mr. 
Henderson  did  not  desire  the  position ;  yet,  at  the 
same  time,  Mr.  Henderson  assures  us  that  he  felt 
rather  nettled  at  the  slight,  he  not  having  authorized 
any  such  statement.  We  learn  that  the  committee 
as  appointed  decided  that  the  printing  should  be 
done  by  the  /-republican,  before  they  had  a  meeting. 

I  regret,  sir,  that  any  allusion  whatever  of  this 
character,  calculated  to  produce  the  impression, 
either  upon  the  Honorable  President  of  the  Con- 
vention or  the  Secretary,  that  any  action  on  their 
part,  in  any  manner  whatever,  at  any  time  during 
the  sitting  of  this  Convention,  "nettled"  me.  I  will 
state  that  the  resolution  spoken  of  in  the  article  was 
originally  offered  by  Dr.  Linton,  and  drawn  in  my 
handwriting.  Your  Honor  had  placed  me  on  two 
important  committees,  and  I  really  did  not  desire 
the  position.  It  may  be  that  the  gentleman  who 
penned  this  article  supposed,  from  the  conversa- 
tion he  had  with  me,  that  I  did  feci  so  "nettled." 
I  may  state  that  the  question  was  asked,  if  it  was 
not  extraordinary  that  the  President  should  ap- 
point another  gentleman  than  the  mover  of  the 
resolution  as  Chairman.  I  answered  distinctly 
that  I  supposed  he  did  it  with  a  due 
regard  to  the  other  duties  that  he  had 
imposed  upon  me.  And,  sir,  I  desired  not  to  be 
Chairman  of  the  committee.    I  recollect  that  the 


Secretary  wanted  the  printing  done  immediately. 

'   Dr.  Linton  was  not  in  his  seat,  and  so  he  request- 

I  ed  me  to  present  the  resolution.    The  Secretary 

!   had  the  greatest  reason  in  the  world  to  believe 

:  that  I  did  not  desire  to  be    on    the  committee. 

|   With  this  explanation  I  will  dismiss  the  subject. 

Mr.  Ritchey  offered  the  following  amendment 

to  the  amendment :    Amend  by  striking  out  the 

word  "fate"  and  substitute  "prosperity"  there- 

'.  for. 

[For  the  better  understanding  of  the  amend- 
ment, we  reproduce  the  original  amendment  in- 
troduced by  Mr.  Moss :] 

Amend  the  fifth  resolution  by  adding,  "and 
'•  further  believing  that  the  fate  of  Missouri  de- 
pends upon  the  peaceable  adjustment  of  our 
:  present  difficulties,  she  will  never  countenance  or 
!  aid  a  seceding  State  in  making  war  on  the  Gen- 
j  oral  Government,  nor  will  she  furnish  men  and 
I  money  for  the  purpose  of  aiding  the  General 
i  Government  in  any  attempt  to  coerce  a  seceding 
I  State." 

The  amendment  to  the  amendment  was  lost. 
Mr.  Ritchey  further  proposed  to  amend  by 
adding,  after  the  word  "never,"  "while  she  stays 
in  the  Union." 

Mr.  Ritchey  .    In  regard  to  this  word  "never," 

that  is  used  in  the  amendment,  it  strikes  me  that 

it  continues  a  long  time.    I  do  not  know  that  the 

amendment  of  the  gentleman  from  Clay  will  be 

j   adopted  by  this  Convention,  but  if  it  should  be, 

|  it  strikes  me  that  Missouri  ties  herself  up  for  a 

!   good  while.    I,  sir,  have  no  idea  that  we  will  ever 

j  have  to  secede.    I  hope  we  never  will;  but  there 

!  is  a  point  where  forbearance  ceases  to  be  a  vir- 

j   tue— we  may  reach  that  point  some  time;  our 

I  forefathers  did;    and    if   such    a    circumstance 

|   should  ever  come  about,  I  feel,  sir,  that  it  is  the 

I   duty  of  Missouri  to  place  herself  in  a  condition 

i   that  she  will  not  be  tied  up  always.    As  I  said 

before,  I  do  not  know  that  the  amendment  of  the 

gentleman  from  Clay  will  be  adopted,  but  if  it 

should  be  adopted,  I  prefer  mine  to  go  with  ir. 

The  question  being  put  on  the  amendment  to 
the  amendment,  it  was  lost. 

Mr.  Douglass  offered  the  following  substitute 
for  the  amendment : 

And  entertaining  these  views,  we  hereby  declare 
that  Missouri  will  not  countenance  or  aid  a  seced- 
ing Stato  in  making  war  on  the  Federal  Govern- 
ment; nor  will  she  countenance  or  aid  the  Gener- 
al Government  in  any  attempt  to  coerce  the  sece- 
ding States  by  military  force. 

Mr,  Douglass— I  call  for  the  ayes  and  nays 
on  this  substitute. 

Mr.  Birch— May  I  be  informed  of  the  effect  of 
the  adoption  of  the  substitute? 

The  Chair— It  will  then  take  the  place  only  of 
the  amendment. 

The  substitute  of  Mr.  Douglass  was  then  re- 
jected, by  the  following  vote : 


94 


Aves— Birch,  Chenault,  Doniphan,  Donnell, 
Douglass,  Drake,  Dunn,  Gamble,  Givens,  Gorin, 
Hatcher,  Hough,  Irwin,  Knott,  Marmaduke, 
Noell,  Norton,  Phillips,  Ray,  Redd,  Sayre,  Shack- 
elford, of  Howard,  Shackleford,  of  St.  Louis, 
Watkins,  Mr.  President — 25. 

Noes— Allen,  Bartlett,  Bass,  Bast,  Bogy, 
Breckinridge,  Broadhead,  Bridge,  Brown,  Bus-h, 
Calhoun,  Cayce,  Comingo,  Crawford,  Fitzen, 
Frayser,  Flood,  Foster,  Gantt,  Gravelly,  Hall,  of 
Buchanan,  Harbin,  Henderson,  Hendricks,  Hill, 
Hitchcock,  Holmes,  Holt,  How,  Howell,  Hud- 
gins,  Isbell,  Jackson,  Jamison,  Johnson,  Kidd, 
Lecpcr,  Linton,  Long,  Marvin,  Matson,  Maupin- 
McClurg,  McCormack,  McDowell,  McFcrran, 
Meyer,  Morrow,  Moss,  Orr,  Pomeroy,  Rankin, 
Ritchey,  Rowland,  Sawyer,  Scott,  Sheeley, 
Smith,  of  Linn,  Smith,  of  St.  Louis,  Stewart, 
Tindall,  Turner,  Waller,  Woodson,  Woolfolk, 
Wright,  Vanbuskirk,  Zimmerman — G8. 

Absent— Collier,  Hall,  of  Randolph,  Pipkin, 
Ross,  Welch,  Wilson. 

Mr.  Howell  offered  the  following  amendment 
to  the  amendment  pending : 

Strikeout  the  word  "  fate"  and  insert  the  word 
"  welfare"  in  the  place  thereof;  also,  strike  out 
the  word  ''never"  and  insert  the  word  "not" 
therefor. 

Mr.  Howell  made  a  few  remarks  in  support 
of  his  amendment,  saying  he  desired  that  Mis- 
souri should  not  be  tied  in  regard  to  her  action  in 
the  future. 

Mr.  Stewakt  declared  himself  in  favor  of  the 
report  as  it  came  from  the  Committee  on  Federal 
Relations.  He  took  strong  grounds  against  seces- 
sion, and  denounced  it  as  a  political  heresy.  Tho 
proper  way  for  Missouri  to  redress  her  grievan- 
ces, was  to  stay  in  the  Union.  While  he  could  not 
but  acknowledge  the  abstract  right  of  a  Govern- 
ment to  resort  to  coercion  in  enforcing  its  laws, 
still  he  regarded  its  exercise  as  inexpedient  and 
productive  of  civil  war,  should  the  Federal  Gov- 
ernment attempt  to  coerce  the  seceding  States. 
It  would  be  suicidal  for  Missouri  to  secede. 
A  man  might  have  the  moral  power  and  the  phy- 
sical power  to  take  his  life,  yet  he  would  hardly 
commit  the  act  provided  no  good  would  come 
from  it.  He  held  that  Missouri  could  have  her 
rights  better  protected  in  the  Union  than  out  of 
the  Union,  and  concluded  by  paying  an  eloquent 
tribute  to  the  stars  and  stripes. 

Pending  the  consideration  of  Mr.  Howell's 
amendment,  a  motion  was  made  to  adjourn, 
which  was  canied. 


ELEVENTH    DAY. 

St.  Louis,  March  13th,  1861. 

Met  at  10  o'clock. 

Prayer  by  the  Chaplain. 

Journal  read  and  approved. 

Mr.  Hudgixs.    Mr.  President — 

Mr.  Howell.  Will  tho  gentleman  give  way 
for  a  moment  and  allow  me  to  make  a  personal 
explanation. 

Mr.  Hudgins.    I  will  do  so. 

Mr.  Howell.  I  wish  to  remark  that  I  was 
not  well  comprehended  by  the  reporter  last  even- 
ing, in  the  explanation  I  gave  of  the  amendment 
I  offered  to  the  amendment  of  the  gentleman  from 
Clay.  I  desire  to  remark  here,  that  I  am  opposed 
to  the  secession  of  Missouri.  I  am  opposed  to 
any  revolutionary  action  of  Missouri  under  the 
j  existing  circumstances  or  under  circumstan- 
!  ccs  that  we  may  reasonably  anticipate  in 
I  the  future.  While  I  occupy  this  position, 
and  was  elected  by  my  people  upon  this  posi- 
tion, I  protest  against  committing  Missouri,  in 
j  all  time  to  come,  to  passive  obedience  under  all 
and  every  circumstance  that  may  transpire.  I 
am  willing  to  vote  that  Missouri  is  now  opposed 
to  furnishing  men  and  money,  under  existing 
I  circumstances,  or  under  the  circumstances  that  I 
hope  we  may  reasonably  anticipate,  to  aid  the 
Seceding  States  in  any  belligerent  efforts  toward 
the  General  Government.  I  am  equally,  sir,  op- 
posed to  any  action  by  the  General  Government, 
with  reference  to  coercing  by  military  force,  or 
otherwise,  the  Seceded  States,  or  any  State,  back 
into  obedience  to  that  Government,  If  we  de- 
clare that  we  are  opposed  for  all  time 
to  come,  to  Missouri  taking  any  action  under  any 
or  all  circumstances,  in  opposition  to  the  General 
Government,  I  desire  to  be  as  limitless  in  re- 
ference to  coercion  against  the  States  who  are 
now  acting  as  they  may  coneieve  in  vindication  of 
their  rights.  If  this  Govvernment  can  be  pre- 
served it  will  have  to  be  by  compromise  and  by 
additional  guarantees  to  the  rights  of  the  slave- 
holding  States. 

Mr.  Moss.  With  the  permission  of  my  friend 
from  Andrew,  (Mr.  Hudgins,)  I  rise  for  the  pur- 
pose of  accepting  the  amendment  offered  by  the 
gentleman  from  Monroe.  In  doing  so  I  am  not 
disposed  to  be  arbitrary  in  a  matter  of  this  sort 
to  my  friends  who  advocate  this  amend- 
ment, and  I  am  not  disposed  to  prolong 
the  debate  of  this  Convention  in  reference 
to  a  mere  play  upon  words.  This  amendment 
proposes  to  substitute  "not"  for  the  word 
"never,"  and  "welfare"  for  "fate."  Now,  I  do 
not  think  that  materially  changes  my  amend- 
ment, while  I  think  my  position  in  offering  tho 


95 


amendment,  just  as  it  is,  with  the  word  "fate"  in 
place  of  "welfare,"  &c.  I,  therefore,  for  the  pur- 
pose of  shortening  the  debate  and  gratifying 
some  of  my  Mends,  accept  the  amendment  of- 
fered by  the  gentleman  from  Monroe. 

Mr.  Hudgins.  Mr.  President  and  Gentlemen 
of  the  Convention  :  I  hope  that  it  will  be  the 
pleasure  of  this  Convention  to  hear  me  this 
morning,  calmly  and  dispassionately,  and  to 
allow  me  the  privilege  of  following  the 
example  of  those  who  have  preceded  me 
in  the  discussion  of  this  question,  to  debate  to 
some  extent  the  whole  question  submitted  in 
the  resolutions  of  the  Committee  on  Federal 
Relations.  I  had  as  well,  I  presume,  and  better, 
60  far  as  time  is  concerned,  say  what  I  have  to  say 
this  morning,  while  I  am  up,  if  I  may  be  indulged 
in  doing  so.  But  little,  if  anything,  has  been  said 
from  my  district.  I  hail  from  that  portion  of 
country  that  is  surrounded  almost  by  free  States — 
Kansas  within  five  miles  of  my  residence,  aud  Iowa 
within  fifty  miles,  You  might  suppose,  from  my 
po.-i!ion,  that  I  would  be  better  prepared  to  go 
further  North,  even  in  pursuit  of  Sir  John  Frank- 
lin, among  the  icebergs  of  the  cold  regions,  than 
other  gentlemen  who  have  preceded  me. 

The  question,  gentlemen  of  the  Convention, 
that  we  have  under  consideration,  is  a  very  im- 
portant one.  I  indorse  much  that  has  been  said 
by  all  the  speakers  that  have  addressed  us  upon 
this  subject.  We  cannot  estimate  too  highly  the 
worth  of  the  American  Union.  Missouri  has  a 
right  to  be  heard,  and  she  will  be  felt  in  the  set- 
tlement of  this  controversy.  Her  appeals  will 
not  be  disregarded  by  the  North  or  by  the  South. 
We  are  not — as  instructed  by  the  resolutions  that 
are  before  us  this  morning  from  the  Committee 
on  Federal  Relations — we  arc  not  ready  now.  to 
dissolve  our  connection  with  the  General  Govern- 
ment. Missouxi,  of  all  the  States  in  this  Union, 
has  the  greatest  interest  in  the  perpetuity  of  the 
Government  of  these  United  States. 

Cur  position  is  such  that  we  should  use  more 
effor;  s  and  more  exertions  and  be  more  conserva- 
tive and  compromising  than  any  other  State;  and 
hence,  to  use  a  common  phrase,  we  should  hasten 
leisurely  upon  a  subject  of  so  much  importance. 
If  we  connect  ourselves  with  a  Southern  Republic, 
we  lo-e  our  central  position  and  we  become  a 
border  State  at  the  extreme  end  of  that  Repub- 
lic, and  our  position  will  be  unfavorable,  as  we 
have  intimated  in  the  report  before  us.  If  we 
connect  ourselves— if  a  dissolution  should  take 
place,  and  this  Government  should  be  destroyed, 
and  we  should  take  our  posh  ion  with  the  North- 
ern Republic,  we  should  then  have  an  unenviable 
position.  We  should  then  be  a  border  State  in 
that  Republic,  and  we  would  necessarily  have,  if 
the  other  remaining  States  should  withdraw  from 
the  Union,  the  remainining  slave  States,  as  a 
matter  of  course  our  constitution  would  have  to 


undergo  a  change,  and  a  very  important  change. 
Of  course,  then,  everything  is  to  be  gained  by 
compromising.  Our  interest  is,  if  possible,  to 
stand  as  other  gentlemen  have  been  pleas- 
ed   to  say,  between    the  North  and  the  South. 

Our  position  is  to  be  a  conservative  position. 
We  can  take  a  position  for  compromise,  such 
as  will  leave  the  integrity  and  honor  of  our 
people  untarnished  and  uncompromised,  and 
thereby  reinstate  the  old  Union  and  settle  all 
difficulties,  so  that  the  Stars  and  Stripes  of  our 
country  may  once  more  wave  over  a  united  and 
happy  people— North,  South,  East  and  West. 
We  can  do  more,  in  my  judgment,  to  accomplish 
this,  and  we  can  take  less  in  the  compromise, 
than  any  other  State.  The  very  thought  of  dis- 
solving the  Union,  the  very  thought  of  our  not 
being  American  citizens — that  the  flag  that  has 
passed  over  all  the  sedi  in  the  civilized  world,  is 
to  be  taken  down,  and  this  country,  with  all  its 
privileges,  all  its  advantages,  civil  and  religious, 
to  be  blotted  out— it  would  be  like  the  sun  dying 
in  the  heavens  and  the  stars  falling  from  their 
places.  But  we  have  been  told  by  one  of  the 
gentlemen  who  addressed  us  on  yesterday,  the 
gentleman  from  Pike,  (Mr.  Henderson,)  that  there 
was  no  danger,  that  the  probability  of  a  dissolu- 
tion of  the  Union  was  not  true,  that  our  institu- 
tions were  not  imperilled  at  the  present  time  to 
any  great  extent.  Would  to  God  that  I  could 
indorse  that  sentiment.  I  would  be  gratified  to- 
day if  I  could  feel  that  it  was  true— if  I  could  feel 
that  in  the  future  toil  and  labor  might  be  able  to 
accomplish  that  result.  This  Government,  with 
its  Constitution,  with  its  privileges,  is  too  dear  for 
us  to  contemplate  surrendering.  Its  pillars  were 
laid  by  our  Revolutionary  sires,  baptised  in  their 
tears  and  prayers,  and  cemented  in  their  blood. 
May  Heaven  forbid  we  should  ever  surrender  it 
or  give  it  up.  The  voices  from  the  tombs  of 
those  who  fought  for  our  liberties,  those  who 
bled  and  obtained  those  privileges,  rise  up  and 
speak  to  us  as  American  citizens,  as  sons  of  that 
noble  ancestry,  and  are  saying:  Save  the  coun- 
try; dash  not  that  cup  of  so  many  millions  of 
blessings,  in  a  moment  of  passion  and  excite- 
ment, from  your  lips. 

I  am  not  surprised,  Mr.  President  and  gentle- 
men of  the  Convention,  at  the  vast  concourso  of 
intelligent  and  respectable  citizens,  male  and  fe- 
male, that  crowd  from  day  to  day  this  hall.  We 
never  can  consent — the  American  people  never 
will  willingly  consent — to  give  up  all  these  privi- 
leges; and  while  our  country  is  imperilled,  while 
we  feel  there  is  danger,  while  anxiety  hangs  upon 
every  countenance,  and  while  every  spark  of  in- 
telligence is  looked  forward  to  with  the  greatest 
interest,  and  while  this  is  the  condition  of  things 
it  is  not  surprising  that  so  many  should  collect 
themselves  together  iu  order  to  hear  what  may 
be   said.    The    people  of    the  State,whom   wo 


96 


now  represent  in  this^Convention,  feel  a  lively  in- 
terest, and  look  for  some  action  that  -will  stay  the 
further  destruction  of  the  Government  and  bring 
back,  if  possible,  those  States  that  have  With- 
drawn. I  envy  not  that  cold  heart  that  is  capa- 
ble of  looking  back  to  the  past,  and  of  observing 
the  privileges  which  the  American  citizens  have 
enjoyed  with  indifference.  I  envy  not  that  heart 
that  could  look  to  a  distracted  country,  as  this 
now  is,  and  has  been  for  months,  without  feelings 
of  emotion  and  feelings  of  dread.  If  the  hand 
is  not  stayed — if  passion  is  not  controlled — if  rea- 
son does  not  resume  its  throne,  we  may  read  our 
history  and  our  fate  in  the  history  of  the  past.— 
We  have  but  only  to  look  at  the  ancient 
governments,  and  see  what  has  been  their 
fate.  We  have  only  to  look  to  Rome,  who 
once  gave  the  laws  and  controlled  the  civilized 
world.  She  is  in  ruins  now.  We  have  only  to 
look  to  that  nation  that  received  their  laws  from 
God  himself,  and  which  have  been  trodden  down 
for  two  thousand  years — who  were  driven  from 
the  temple  and  scattered  to  the  four  quarters  of 
the  earth,  and  are  now  a  by-word  among  all 
nations  of  the  earth.  If  we  destroy  this  Govern- 
ment; if  our  Constitution  is  destroyed  and  our 
flag  is  abandoned;  if  these  States  are  to  be  divi- 
ded and  subdivided  and  this  Union  is  to  be  dis- 
solved, we  need  not  expect  a  better  fate  than 
the  Jews. 

So  far,  gentlemen  of  the  Convention,  as  I  am 
concerned  myself,  this  question  would  not  press 
me  so  hard;  I  would  not  feel  its  power,  I  would 
not  sink  under  its  weight.  I  have  enjoyed  the 
blessings  of  the  best  Government  and  the  purest 
that  has  ever  been  enjoyed  by  men.  I  have  had 
its  rich  blessings  for  fifty  years;  I  have  enjoyed 
them  long  enough  to  have  them  taken  from  me; 
and  were  I  consigned  to  a  prison  I  ought  not  to 
complain.  Thirty  years  ago,  as  a  youth,  I  passed 
through  your  city,  seeking  a  home  in  the  distant 
West.  I  have  toiled,  as  members  of  this  Con- 
vention know,  from  that  time  until  the  present. 
Destroy  this  Government,  and  all  my  labors  are 
gone,  nnd  I  am  as  poor  as  I  was  when  I  passed 
through  this  city,  thirty  years  ago.  But  this  is 
not  all.  If  these  shall  be  swept  from  me,  and  I 
consigned  to  a  prison  the  remainder  of  my  days, 
it  is  not  the  worst  side  of  the  picture.  I  feel  for 
the  rising  generation;  my  sympathies  are  for  my 
homo  and  family ;  and  my  desire  is  to  leave  to 
them  the  privileges  I  had  Avhen  a  child — to 
leave  to  them  a  country  with  all  its  privileges — 
leave  to  them  a  government  that  can  protect 
them.  To  be  unable  to  do  this  would  be  pain- 
fid  indeed.  Hence  I  come  here  with  feelings, 
gentlemen  of  the  Convention,  strong  for  the 
preservation  of  this  Union.  So  far  as  my  State  is 
concerned,  so  far  as  the  interest  of  my  children  is 
concerned,  and  so  far  as  the  desire  I  have  thai  fu- 
ture generations  shall  enjoy  the  privileges  I  have 


enjoyed,  I  desire  the  preservation  of  this  Union, 
and  I  desire  that  while  time  rolls  on,  and  rolls  on, 
this  country  shall  become  more  happy,  this  Gov- 
ernment more  prosperous.  So  far  as  these  de- 
sires are  concerned,  they  burn  in  my  bosom,  and 
I  apprehend  they  burn  in  the  bosom  of  every 
member  of  this  Convention,  and  of  every  indi- 
vidual of  this  large  assembly. 

I  do  not  believe  it  is  necessary  for  such  a  test  as 
to  have  men  again  renew  their  pledges  and  at- 
tachments to  a  country  like  ours.  I  cannot  real- 
ize how  an  American  citizen  can  ever  forget  its 
honor  and  integrity.  I  cannot  imagine  a  heart  so 
cold  and  corrupt  as  to  desire  the  destruction  of 
our  Government.  I  envy  no  man  such  feclimrs, 
and  I  presume  none  have  that  feeling  that  would 
desire  this  Government  destroyed.  Our  Commit- 
tee have  traced  the  causes  that  have  led  to  our 
present  position ;  they  have  told  us  that  a  party 
has  grown  up  in  the  Northern  States ;  that  they 
have  been  engaged  for  years  in  operations  against 
the  South;  that  they  pointed  out  the  means  they 
have  been  using  for  twenty,  thirty  and  forty 
years,  in  endeavoring  to  overthrow  the  institu- 
tions of  the  slaveholding  States,  and  in  the  lan- 
guage of  the  President  of  the  United  States,  that 
the  irrepressible  conflict  had  commenced;  that 
this  Government  could  not  exist  part  slave  and 
part  free;  that  it  must  all  be  one  or  all  the 
other,  and  that  slavery  must  be  confined  to 
the  States  where  it  exists  and  the  public 
mind,  the  Northern  mind,  must  be,  satisfied 
that  it  is  in  a  condition  for  rapid  extinction. 
This  sentiment  is  the  summing  up.  This 
is  the  text  that  has  become  the  fundamental  doe- 
trine  of  that  party  that  has  grown  up  in  opposi- 
tion to  slavery.  They  pretend  that  their  con- 
sciences, under  the  delusion  of  religious  opinions, 
and  the  prostitution  of  the  sacred  desk  and  of  the 
common  schools,  and  of  the  famity  circle,  have 
been  misled  and  misdirected  by  designing  indi- 
viduals until  they  now  pretend  that  their  con- 
sciences render  it  necessary  that  they  should  in- 
terfere with  slavery  in  the  States.  They  do  not 
remember  that  the  Constitution  of  the  United 
States  authorizes  it;  they  seem  to  forget  that  t}m 
laws  of  this  State,  for  which  they  arc  not  respon- 
sible, and  they  seem  to  forget  the  glorious  volume 
of  inspiration  which  sanctions  it.  They  had  as 
well  deny  that  the  Bible  sanctions  the  relation  of 
husband  and  wife,  parent  and  child,  as  that 
of  master  and  servant.  Their  consciences  are 
misguided  and  misdirected  altogether,  and  if 
I  had  the  command  of  the  missionary  socie- 
ties I  would  send  missionaries,  by  thousands, 
to  the  Northern  States,  in  order  to  teach 
their  ministers  and  those  who  have  de- 
parted from  the  correct  rules,  to  attend  to  their 
own  institutions,  attend  to  their  own  system  of 
slavery,  and  attend  to  their  own  business,  and 
let  the  institutions  of  other  States  alone.    Mis- 


97 


souri  is  not  responsible  for  the  trouble  that 
now  exists  in  the  Government.  She  is  not 
responsible  for  Northern  fanaticism  on  the  sub- 
ject of  slavery.  She  is  not  responsible  for  the 
withdrawing  from  the  Union  of  seven  States,  and 
she  is  not  responsible  for  the  excitement  in  other 
slave  States  in  this  Union.  She  is  not  responsi- 
ble for  the  institution  of  slavery.  Her  action  in 
the  future  and  her  conduct  hereafter  may  make 
her  responsible.  Tho  stand  that  she  takes  in  this 
Convention  and  the  course  she  now  pursues  is 
one  of  importance,  and  her  action,  as  I  remarked 
before,  will  be  looked  to  with  great  interest.  We 
should  not  forget,  while  we  consider  this  subject, 
that  when  the  compact  was  entered  into  under 
our  Constitution,  that  there  were  twelve  slave 
and  one  free  State  that  ratified  the  Constitu- 
tion of  the  United  States.  These  twelve  States 
went  into  this  compact  and  framed  the  Constitu- 
tion for  the  South  and  the  slaveholding  States. 
Many  of  them  were  patriots  who  fought  for  our 
liberties.  There  were  many  of  them,  who  en- 
gaged in  making  this  Constitution  and  establish- 
ing slavery  in  these  States,  fresh  from  the  battle- 
fields where  they  had  aided  in  burying  patriots 
that  fought  and  fell  on  American  soil. 

They  have  left  this  Constitution,  gentlemen  of 
the  Convention,  and  now  Northern  fanaticism  has 
arisen  and  the  question  has  presented  itself  to  the 
slave  holding  States  of  the  Union,  are  we  willing 
to  submit  ?  are  we  willing  that  those  sires  of  ours, 
that  all  their  sacrifice  and  toil — are  we  willing 
that  it  shall  be  said  that  this  Constitution  that  has 
been  handed  down  to  us  by  our  sires,  that  this 
Constitution  is  "a  covenant  with  death  and  a 
league  with  hell,"  because  slavery  was  sanctioned  ? 
Are  we  willing  to  have  this  reproach  heaped  upon 
us  ?  Are  we  willing  that  slave  holders  shall  be 
called  harsh  names  of  villain,  wretch,  &c,  and 
submit  to  all  this  ?  Is  it  not  right  that  we  should 
feel  a  desire  to  maintain  the  honor  of  a  sovereign 
State, its  Constitution  and  laws?  Is  American 
liberty  short  of  this  ?  Is  it  not  our  duty,  gentle- 
men ot  the  Convention,  to  have  a  reverence  and 
respect  for  those  institutions  that  were  handed 
down  to  us  from  those  pure  patriots  and  states- 
men whose  love  of  country  was  not  doubted  and 
could  not  be  questioned?  Have  the  sons 
of  that  noble  ancestry  and  of  those  noble 
sires,  have  they  degenerated  so  that  they  are  willing 
to  become  submissionists,  so  that  Northern  fan- 
aticism shall  rale,  govern  and  control  our  insti- 
tutions? I  love  my  country,  I  love  its  honor, 
Constitution  and  laws,  and  I  love  its  institutions ; 
but  with  all  these  I  cannot  sacrifice  its  honor, 
and  I  could  not  make  myself  a  submissionist  for 
a  moment.  It  would  be  unmaking  me,  and  I 
should  have  to  be  re-created  with  less  feelings  of 
resentment  than  even  the  vilest  creature.  Even 
the  reptile  that  crawls  upon  the  earth  when  you 
put  your  foot  upon  it  will  resent  the  action.    In 


expressing  my  feelings  upon  this  subject  permit 
me  to  say  that  I  have  no  sympathy  with  the 
blind  zeal  and  fanaticism  of  the  North,  and  I 
hold  they  have  no  right  to  say  anything  about 
the  institutions  of  other  States.  They  are  no 
more  responsible,  as  the  report  says,  for  slavery 
in  the  slave  States,  than  they  are  for  its  existence 
in  other  countries ;  they  have  enough  to  do  to  at- 
attend  to  slavery  at  home.  I  rejoice  that  the 
slave  States  have  never  been  charged  with  med- 
dling with  the  institutions  of  the  non-slaveholding 
States.  While  this  report  states  that  the  slave 
States  have  passed  laws  that  have  been  uncon- 
stitutional, I  thank  God,  I  remember  that  these 
laws  have  not  been  against  our  Northern  breth- 
ren ;  they  have  not  been  calculated  to  deprive 
them  of  their  rights  of  property  or  honor. 
They  have  affected  our  own  citizens,  and  they 
have  been  errors  of  legislation  without  intention 
of  wrong  or  our  design  to  injure  any  one.  The 
laws  of  which  we  complain  are  the  laws  which 
have  been  passed  against  the  Federal  Govern- 
ment, against  the  rights  of  the  Southern  States, 
against  the  rights  of  the  slaveholders,  and  we  have 
the  right  to  complain  of  these  laws.  It  is  making 
a  wrong  impression  to  say  that  all  the  States 
have  passed  unconstitutional  laws.  After  this 
compact  had  been  entered  into,  and  when  it  was 
entered  into  by  these  thirteen  States,  it  was  never 
thought  for  a  moment  that  the  Constitution  was 
to  protect  a  majority  against  the  minority.  Mas- 
sachusetts would  never  have  gone  into  the 
compact  if  an  intimation  had  been  made 
the  twelve  States  would  seek  to  force  slavery 
upon  them  and  change  their  Constitution. 
The  slave  States  have  been  content  that  the  in- 
stitutions of  the  free  States  should  remain  unmo- 
lested, and  they  have  not  sought  to  change  them 
or  make  any  inroads  upon  their  Constitution  or 
laws.  We  find,  gentlemen  of  the  Convention, 
that  seven  States — some  say  they  have  seceded, 
others  call  it  rebellion,  others  disunion,  others 
that  they  have  withdrawn — while  the  President 
of  the  United  States,  denies  that  they  have,  or 
that  they  are  out  of  the  Union— I  care  not  what 
you  call  it— it  matters  not  so  far  as  the  interest  of 
Missouri  is  concerned  whether  it  is  disunion, 
whether  it  is  rebellion,  yet  they  have  repealed  the 
resolution  that  ratified  the  Constitution  of  the 
United  States,  and  as  far  as  legislation  is  con- 
cerned, as  far  as  the  acts  of  their  people  can  go 
upon  a  question  of  this  sort,  they  have  said  we 
withdraw  ourselves  from  all  privileges  under  the 
Constitution  of  the  United  States.  I  do  not  be- 
lieve that  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States 
authorizes  a  State  to  secede,  to  rebel  or  withdraw. 
I  do  not  say  that  secession  is  constitutional.  I 
do  not  believe  it,  as  a  lawyer,  that  any  provision  is 
made  in  the  Constitution  for  a  State  to  secede,  or 
withdraw,  or  dissolve  its  connection  with  the 
General  Government. 


98 


No  one  will  contend  that  this  right  is  guaran- 
teed by  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States.  I 
understand,  gentlemen  of  the  Convention,  that 
the  power  of  this  Government  is  in  the  people; 
that  the  people  have  transferred  or  delegated  to 
them  a  certain  portion  of  that  power  in  the  State 
Legislature,  in  making  sovereign  States.  They 
act  as  their  agents.  I  understand  these  sovereign 
States  have  transferred  certain  powers  to  the 
General  Government.  I  understand  that  what- 
ever is  not  expressed  in  the  Constitution,  what- 
ever power  is  not  given,  remains  among  the  peo- 
ple as  their  reserved  rights.  In  order  to  ascertain 
what  power  the  sovereign  people  have  dele- 
gated, we  will  examine  and  see  what  rights  they 
have  conferred  upon  parties  authorized  to  act  in 
general  convention,  and  whatever  is  not  express- 
ed there  and  implied  in  that  instrument,  of  right 
belongs  to  the  people  themselves.  There  is  a 
principle  retained  by  the  people — there  is  a  prin- 
ciple that  is  retained  by  all  nations — there  is  a 
right  which  they  have,  as  was  declared  by  our 
fathers  in  the  Declaration  of  Independence, 
that  whenever  a  government  becomes  oppres- 
sive they  may  throw  it  off  by  revolution. 
They  may  say  we  have  delegated  these  powers. 
We  supposed  it  was  for  our  good  and  common 
interest  when  we  went  into  this  compact,  but  we 
have  found  out  it  is  oppressive  and  not  to  be 
borne ;  and  in  the  language  then  used  by  those 
who  signed  the  declaration  of  independence,  we 
have  the  right  to  throw  it  off.  It  is  not  a  right 
under  the  Constitution,  but  it  is  a  right  with  us 
retained  by  the  people  themselves.  It  is  not  del- 
egated, and  it  was  never  intended  to  confer  their 
rights  as  a  sovereign  people;  it  was  never  in- 
tended to  give  up  all  of  their  authority,  and 
make  a  Government  that  they  never  could  get  rid 
of.  I  take  the  position,  then,  that  the  Constitu- 
tion of  the  United  States  gives  no  right  to  any 
Southern  State  to  withdraw,  or  to  secede,  or  to 
have  the  right  of  rebellion.  But  there  is  a  moral 
question  in  this :  Has  a  State  the  right,  or  have 
seven  States,  or,  as  we  see  before  us  now,  have 
they  the  right,  or  had  they  the  right,  morally, 
to  throw  off  this  Government,  to  relin- 
quish all  its  honors  or  privileges,  and  aban- 
don them  all  ?  I  am  not  willing,  gentlemen  of  the 
Convention,  to  deal  in  epithets  such  as  traitor  or 
villain  in  regard  to  the  Southern  people.  I  can 
look  back,  and  in  the  language  of  an  individual 
leaving  his  country,  I  can  say  to  the  Southern 
people — I  can  say,  with  all  your  faults  I  love  you 
still.  I  desire,  gentlemen  of  the  Convention,  to 
see  these  States  reunited,  if  possible,  but  I  know 
the  Southern  people,  and  while  you  tell  me  and 
this  Convention  that  it  will  not  do  to  threaten  the 
North,  I  tell  you  it  will  not  do  to  threaten  the 
South,  either.  If  they  are  ever  to  come  under  the 
flag  of  our  country  again,  it  is  not  by  force,  threats 
or  abuse — not  by  the  epithet  of  traitor,  tory  or 


villain.  I  take  it  that  when  a  Convention  of  Mis- 
souri, that  has  been  elected  by  your  people  who 
have  debated  this  question  at  home — who  have 
debated  it  in  their  country  school  houses  and 
court  houses,  and  all  through  the  country,  and 
when  they  have  debated  this  question  in  their  fam- 
ilies, and  in  every  relation  that  they  sustain  to- 
ward each  other — and  when  we  assemble  here 
fresh  from  that  people — should  not  our  action  be 
respected  by  South  Carolina,  Massachusetts  and 
other  States  in  the  Union  ?  I  should  be  greatly 
mortified  if  the  name  of  traitor  should  be 
used  to  those  who  take  a  part  in  this  Convention, 
and  those  who  believe  certain  things  should  be 
done,  and  certain  things  maintained.  What  I 
ask  from  other  States  I  am  willing  to  mete  out 
to  others  myself.  I  know  the  feeling  of  the  peo- 
ple of  the  Southern  States.  I  know  how  they 
view  the  election  of  a  sectional  President,  who 
maintains  that  slavery  must  be  put  in  a  course  of 
ultimate  extinction.  I  know  they  look  with  a 
great  deal  of  apprehension  and  fear.  I  believe  in 
their  courage  and  fidelity  to  their  country.  When 
they  called  their  statesmen  together  they  debated 
this  question  well  and  freely,  and  went  into  the 
debates  and  consultation  in  regard  to  this  great 
question  of  severing  themselves  from  the  country, 
and  when  they  gravely  decided  to  dp  this,  and  I 
concede  to  this  people  that  they  have  done  what 
they  think  is  for  their  interest — for  the  interest  of 
the  old,  the  middle  aged,  the  rising  generation, 
and  the  generation  to  come — I  do  not  believe  the 
leading  men  there  are  traitors—not  at  all;  I  believe 
they  act  from  principle,  and  aithougn  they  may 
have  been  misguided  I  believe  they  act  from  a 
principle  that  animated  their  bosoms,  howev- 
er wrong  it  might  be,  for  their  children  and  their 
children's  children.  I  am  willing  to  let  them 
give  their  reasons ;  I  am  willing  to  hear  their 
reasons.  They  say  to  the  Northern  people  that 
our  reason  for  thus  acting  and  throwing  off  this 
Government,  is,  that  you  have  increased  your 
numbers  until  you  have  elected  a  sectional  Presi- 
dent, and  one  that  has  declared  doctrines  that 
will  overthrow  our  institutions  and  ruin  us.  Our 
wells  will  be  poisoned  and  the  lives  of  our 
citizens  will  be  imperilled,  and  our  dwellings  be 
destroyed  by  incendiaries  urged  on  by  North- 
ern fanatics,  and  sent  into  this  country  with 
the  works  of  death  and  destruction  in  their 
hands.  They  say  to  the  Northern  people,  when 
our  fathers  went  into  this  compact  with  you, 
when  they  signed  this  article,  when  they  indorsed 
the  Constitution,  slavery  was  then  in  our  State 
Constitutions,  and  you  knew  it  when  you  went 
into  a  compact  with  us ;  you  covenanted  with  us 
and  we  with  you,  and  we  held  the  rights  of 
States  and  citizens  of  States,  and  that  they  should 
be  preserved.  You  went  into  a  covenant  with 
us  that  whenever  slaves  escaped,  you  would  return 
them.      They  say  now  we  have  four  hundred 


99 


thousand  millions  of  slave  property  and  are  yet 
called  thieves,  robbers  and  villains  by  you  be- 
cause we  own  property  that  we  inherited  from  our 
revolutionary  sires,  and  under  the  Constitution 
that  they  made  and  that  we  are  bound  to  protect. 
They  say  to  us,  you  entered  into  this  compact  as 
partners  with  us ;  that  you  have  passed  laws  in 
your  legislatures  making  it  difficult  for  us  to 
get  our  slaves.  You  have  passed  laws  to  impris- 
on us  in  some  instances,  and  while  we  love  the 
Constitution  and  the  country,  yet  we  love  our 
institutions,  and  as  we  find  there  is  no  hope  of 
their  being  protected,  we  have  taken  this  step, 
and  thrown  off  the  Government,  and  will 
you  let  us  go  in  peace.  We  want  no 
bloodshed.  We  want  our  institutions,  and 
we  will  give  up  the  Government  with 
all  its  powers,  or,  as  a  last  resort,  Ave  will  attempt 
to  throw  it  off.    Will  you  permit  us  to  do  it  ? 

Permit  me  to  read  an  extract  from  an  address 
delivered  by  John  Quincy  Adams,  before  the  1ST. 
York  Historical  Society,  in  1839,  at  the  jubilee  of 
the  Constitution.    His  language  is  this  : 

"Nations  acknowledge  no  judge  between  them  on 
earth  and  their  governments,  from  necessity,  must, 
in  their  intercourse  with  each  other,  decide  when  the 
failure  of  party  to  a  contract  to  perform  its  obliga- 
tions absolves  the  other  from  the  reciprocal  fulfill- 
ment of  his  own.  But  this  lust  of  earthly  powers  is 
not  necessary  to  the  freedom  or  independence  of 
States,  connected  together  by  the  immediate  action 
of  the  people,  of  whom  they  consist.  To  the  people 
alone  is  there  reserved,  as  well  the  dissolving  as  the 
constituent  power,  and  that  power  can  be  exercised 
by  them  onlv  under  the  tie  of  conscience,  binding 
them  to  the  retributive  justice  of  heaven. 

"Several  sovereign  and  independent  States  may 
unite  themselves  by  a  perpetual  confederacy,  without 
ceasing  to  be,  each  individually,  a  perfect  State.  They 
will  together  constitute  a  Federal  Republic:  their 
joint  deliberations  will  not  impair  the  sovereignty  of 
each  member,  though  they  may,  in  certain  respects, 
put  some  restraints  on  the  exercise  of  it.  in  virtue  of 
voluntary  engagements.  A  person  does  not  cease  to 
be  free  and  independent  when  he  is  obliged  to  fulfill 
engagements  which  he  has  voluntarily  contracted."— 
[  Vattel's  Law  of  Nations,  book  1,  chap.  1. 

Also  the  following  from  a  speech  by  Webster : 
"I  do  not  hesitate  to  say  and  repeat  that  if  the 
Northern  States  refuse  willfully  and  deliberately  to 
carry  into  effect  that  part  of  the  Constitution  which 
respects  the  restoration  of  fugitive  slaves,  the  South 
would  no  longer  be  bound  to  observe  the  compact. 
A  bargain  broken  on  one  side  is  broken  on  all  sides.'' 
Gentlemen  of  the  Convention,  I  give  you  their 
reasons.  When  they  are  brought  back— and 
permit  me  to  fay  that  I  do  not  stand  here  as 
an  apologist  for  them,  but  I  am  willing  their  rea- 
sons should  be  given— they  are  our  brethren, 
and  we  maybe  reunited  again;  but  when  they 
are  brought  back,  it  is  to  be  on  fair  and  honor- 
able terms.  And  Missouri,  if  she  expects  to 
reach  the  Southern  States  in  this  matter— and 


that  is  one  of  her  objects— if  she  expects  to  reach 
them,  she  will  have  to  reach  them  like  patriots. 
The  resolution  before  you  is  objected  to  by  many 
individuals,  because  they  understand  there  are 
threats  in  it;  that  whatever  you  may  say  about 
the  South,  however  much  you  may  talk  about 
treason  in  the  South  and  traitors,  that  no  breath 
of  censure  must  go  to  the  North !  If  Missouri  is 
to  settle  this  matter,  she  must  go  with  Kentucky, 
Virginia,  Maryland  and  North  Carolina,  and 
what  have  they  said?  What  is  the  course  these 
Border  States  have  declared  on  this  very  subject 
in  the  resolution  now  under  consideration?  I 
desire  to  read  for  a  moment  the  resolution  passed 
in  Kentucky,  that  you  may  see  the  tone  of  that 
State  and  what  they  regard  as  the  true  position 
for  a  Southern  State  to  take  in  order  to  settle  this 
matter.  I  read  from  the  resolutions  recently 
passed  by  the  Kentucky  Legislature. 

"Resolved,  That  this  General  Assembly  has 
heard  with  profound  regret  of  the  resolutions  re- 
cently adopted  by  the  States  of  New  York,  Ohio, 
Maine,  and  Massachusetts,  tendering  men  and 
money  to  the  President  of  the  United  States,  to 
be  used  in  coercing  certain  sovereign  States  of 
the  South  into  obedience  to  the  Federal  Govern- 
ment. 

"Resolved,  That  this  GeneralAssembly  receives 
the  action  of  the  Legislatures  of  New  York, 
Ohio,  Maine  and  Massachusetts,  as  the  indication 
of  a  purpose  upon  the  part  of  the  people  of  those 
States  to  further  complicate  existing  difficulties, 
by  forcing  the  people  of  the  South  to  the  extrem- 
ity of  submission  or  resistance ;  and  so  regarding 
it,  the  Governor  of  the  State  of  Kentucky  is  here- 
by requested  to  inform  the  Executives  of  the 
States  of  New  York,  Ohio,  Maine,  and  Massachu- 
setts, that  it  is  the  opinion  of  this  General  Assem- 
bly that  whenever  the  authorities  of  those  States 
si  all  send  armed  forces  to  the  South  for  the  pur- 
pose indicated  in  said  resolutions,  the  people  of 
Kentucky,  uniting  with  their  brethren  of  the 
South,  will,  as  one  man,  resist  such  invasion  of' 
the  soil  of  the  South  at  all  hazards  and  to  the 
last  extremity." 

They  not  only  say  that  they  will  not  help  coerce 
the  Southern  States,  but  they  say  if  the  Northern 
States  send  men  for  that  purpose,  that  Kentucky 
will  join  the  South,  and  resist  to  the  last  extrem- 
ity any  such  attempt.  Yet  one  of  the  orators  in 
this  Convention,  if  he  had  been  in  the  Kentucky 
Legislature,  would  have  said:  "Do  not  use  that 
language ;  you  will  insult  the  Abolitionists  of  the 
North,  and  all  hope  of  settlement  is  gone."  Ken- 
tucky was  bold  enough,  and  had  nerve  enough 
to  meet  such  a  question  as  this.  Although  she 
did  not  approve  of  the  course  of  the  South,  she 
declared,  with  but  six  dissenting  voices  in  her 
Legislature,  that  she  was  opposed  to  any  policy 
or  any  attempt  that  might  be  made  to  coerce 
these  States.    She  declared  that  she  would  make 


100 


common  eatise  with  the  South,  and  resist  to  the 
last  extremity.  A  heresy  in  this  Convention 
then,  is  the  proposition  or  a  declaration  that  if 
coercion  is  attempted,  we  will  not  aid ;  and  this 
is  said  to  be  an  insult  to  the  Northern  States.  It 
is  said,  if  it  is  passed,  the  Northern  States  will 
be  offended,  and  that  no  compromise  can  be 
made.  Are  we  acting  with  the  Border  States  ? 
Are  toe  taking  the  bold  position  that  they  are 
sueing  for  compromise?  If  we  vote  down  the 
resolution,  we  say  by  voting  it  down,  (taking  the 
language  that  has  been  used  upon  this  floor — the 
substance  of  it,)  that  we  will  furnish  men  and 
money.  There  are  two  sides  to  this  question. 
One  is  that  we  will  not  furnish  men  and 
money;  but,  if  we  vote  this  resolution  down, 
we  say  that  we  will  furnish  men  and 
money,  and  are  ready  so  to  do.  Without  under- 
taking at  present  to  determine,  gentlemen  of  the 
Convention,  whether  the  General  Government 
has  the  right  to  coerce  the  Southern  States,  under 
the  Constitution,  a  question  that  I  intend  yet  to 
discuss  before  the  close  of  my  remarks — but,  be- 
fore taking  it  up,  I  propose  to  inquire  for  a  mo- 
ment whether,  if  the  General  Government  has  the 
right,  it  should  be  exercised  towards  these  States. 
Five  millions  of  people  have  taken  a  position  that 
they  have  a  right  to  throw  off  this  Government, 
and  have  gone  out  of  the  United  States.  I  will 
not  debate  the  question  whether  they  have  suc- 
ceeded, or  whether  they  will  succeed  or  not,  but  I 
desire  to  inquire  whether  Missouri  believes,  as  in- 
timated by  two  or  three  members  on  this  floor, 
that  it  would  be  right  to  coerce  these  States  ? 
Think  for  a  moment  of  an  army  marching  upon 
the  States  in  order  to  bring  them  into  subjection. 
Let  a  Northern  army  invade  the  Southern  States, 
let  them  start  from  Ohio  or  New  York,  go  down 
and  attempt  to  bring  those  States  into  subjection. 
They  may  lay  waste  their  cities,  they  may  destroy 
their  people,  they  may  succeed  in  battle,  they 
may  subjugate  the  country  and  destroy  the  inhabi- 
tants, but  tell  me,  then,  if  the  Union  is  sustained; 
tell  me,  then,  if  those  who  are  left  to  tell  the 
news  will  love  the  Northern  States,  after  they 
have  been  scourged,  and  after  the  rivers  have  run 
with  the  blood  of  their  kindred?  Tell  me  how 
long  the  earth  will  revolve  on  its  axis,  or  time 
roll  on,  till  the  Southern  people  will  forget  the 
outrages  of  the  Northern  armies  ?  The  mother 
will  take  her  children  to  the  grave  of  their 
father,  and  tell  them  that  he  was  shot  down  while 
he  was  maintaining  his  rights  against  Northern 
fanatics :  "Here  lies  his  grave."  The  grandchil- 
dren and  the  great  grandchildren  would  be  brought 
to  it,  and  for  ages  their  descendants  would  be  told 
that  their  ancestor  was  slain  in  defense  of  his 
country;  and  while  time  rolled  on,  thousands  of 
years  would  not  drive  from  their  hearts  the  outra- 
ges and  injuries  inflicted  upon  their  sires.  Never, 
never,  can  these  States  be  brought  back  by  the 


power  of  the  sword.  No  such  madness  was  ever 
advocated.  I  cannot  believe  that  a  man  would 
for  one  moment  advocate  the  marching  of  an 
army  upon  the  North  or  the  South,  when  such  an 
attempt  would  dissolve  this  Union  beyond  the 
power  of  reconstruction.  As  a  distinguished  son 
of  Illinois  has  said:  "When  an  army  is  marched 
into  these  States,  and  when  blood  is  shed,  the  sun 
of  American  liberty  will  set  forever  behind  a  sea 
of  blood,  and  will  rise  no  more." 

If  the  Convention  will  indulge  me  one  moment 
I  will  read  one  sentence  upon  this  very  subject, 
from  the  Governor  of  Virginia,  and  I  desire  to 
read  it  in  connection  with  what  I  have  said. — 
Speaking  in  reference  to  the  propositions  from 
New  York  and  Ohio,  he  said : 

"This  I  understand  to  be  a  declaration  of  their 
readiness  and  willingness  to  sacrifice  the  men  and 
money  of  that  State,  in  the  effort  to  coerce  the 
slaveholding  States  to  submission  to  Federal  au- 
thority. The  Governor  and  Legislature  of  New 
York  ought  to  know  that  the  sword  has  never  re- 
conciled differences  of  opinion.  Military  coercion 
can  never  perpetuate  the  existence  of  this  Union. 
When  the  affections  of  the  people  are  withdrawn 
from  the  Government,  an  attempt  at  coercion  can 
have  no  other  effect  than  to  exasperate  the  people 
threatened  to  be  coerced.  Blood,  shed  in  civil 
strife,  can  only  enrich  the  soil  that  must  speedily 
produce  "a  harvest  of  woe." 

Whether  the  Government  of  the  United  States 
has  the  power  or  not  to  coerce  under  the  Constitu- 
tion, I  apprehend  there  is  but  one  feeling,  and 
there  ought  to  be  but  one  in  this  Convention,  and 
that  is,  that  that  power  ought  not,  and,  in  the 
language  of  Kentucky  and  Virginia  and  other 
slaveholding  States,  must  not  be  resorted  to. 
When  an  effort  is  made,  all  efforts  to  reunite  the 
Government — all  efforts  for  peace  are  at  once  gone. 
Gentlemen  of  the  Convention,  the  resolution  that 
is  furnished  by  the  Committee  on  Federal  Rela- 
tions opposes  coercion,  and  the  amendment  now 
under  consideration  says  that  we  will  not  furnish 
men  or  money  for  that  purpose.  We  have  looked 
at  the  effect  of  this  question,  and  the  ultimate 
destruction,  beyond  redemption,  if  coercion  is 
attempted.  But  we  should  not  as  a  Convention 
say  that  we  will  not  furnish  men  or  money  if  the 
Constitution  of  the  United  States  authorizes  the 
General  Government  to  coerce  a  defaulting  or 
seceding  State.  We  should  not  pass  this  resolu- 
tion when  the  resolution  itself  would  be  uncon- 
stitutional, and  this  brings  us  to  the  question, 
has  the  General  Government  the  power  under 
the  Constitution  to  coerce  a  State?  I  have 
said  that  a  State  had  no  constitutional 
right  to  secede.  The  Constitution  has  made  no 
provision  for  the  dissolution  of  the  Union,  and  I 
will  state,  in  addition  to  this,  that  while  it  has 
made  no  provision  for  dissolving  the  Union,  for 
a  State  going  out,  it  has  withheld  all  provision 


101 


and  all  power  from  the  General  Government  to 
coerce  a  state  that  puts  itself  in  default.  I  desire 
to  be  understood  in  this  affirmation.  I  affirm 
that  the  Constitution  does  not  make  any  provi- 
sion to  coerce  any  State,  North  or  South.  Fortu- 
nately for  the  country,  these  very  questions  were 
considered  and  anticipated  in  the  debates  when 
the  Constitution  was  framed.  We  have  left  upon 
the  record  the  testimony  and  debates  of  men  who 
framed  the  Federal  Constitution.  It  was  pro- 
posed, in  making  that  Constitution,  when  they 
looked  to  the  future  and  anticipated  the  troubles 
that  might  arise  between  the  North  and  the 
South,  and  between  the  different  sections  of  the 
Confederacy,  and  they  felt  that  some  power  was 
necessary.  My  friend  from  Pike  yesterday  said 
that  the  General  Government  had  the  power 
to  declare  war,  and,  having  the  power  to  de. 
dare  war,  we  ought  not  to  pass  a  resolution 
that  we  would  not  aid..  I  emphatically  de- 
ny that  the  General  Government  has  any  power 
to  declare  war  against  any  State  in  this  Union. 
They  gave  the  Government  the  power  to  declare 
war  against  a  foreign  nation,  but  when  the  propo- 
sition was  made  to  give  the  power  to  declare  war 
against  a  seceding  State,  it  was  denied.  The 
very  idea,  to  the  framers  of  the  Constitution,  of 
the  General  Government  carrying  the  flag  of  the 
country  to  subdue  one  member  of  the  Confede- 
racy— to  subdue  a  sovereign  State — was  too  hor- 
rible for  them  to  entertain,  and  they  voted  it 
down.  It  was  still  felt  that  something  was  neces- 
sary to  be  done — that  there  should  be  some  power 
in  the  General  Government  to  keep  the  sovereign 
States  in  subjection,  and  the  proposition  was 
made  to  give  all  the  authority  to  the  Federal  Gov- 
ernment to  force  the  States  into  obedience— the 
power  of  coercion— and  upon  that  subject  the  de- 
bates sustain  fully  the  position  I  have  assumed, 
that  it  was  a  dangerous  power  that  ought  not 
to  be  placed  in  the  Federal  Government.  In  the 
Madison  papers,  140,  we  have  the  following  lan- 
guage from  Mr.  Madison,  on  the  question  of  giv- 
ing the  power  of  the  Federal  Government  to  force 
a  seceding  State : 

"Mr.  Madison  observed,  that  the  more  he  re- 
flected on  the  use  of  force,  the  more  he  doubted 
the  practicability,  the  justice,  and  the  efficacy  of 
it,  when  applied  to  people  collectively,  and  not  in- 
dividually. A  union  of  the  States  containing 
such  an  ingredient  seemed  to  provide  for  its  own 
destruction.  The  use  of  force  against  a  State 
would  look  more  like  a  declaration  of  war  than 
an  infliction  of  punishment,  and  would  probably 
be  considered  by  the  party  attacked  as  a  dissolu- 
tion of  all  previous  compacts  by  which  it  might 
be  bound.  He  hoped  that  such  a  system  would 
be  framed  as  might  render  this  resource  unneces- 
sary, and  moved  that  the  clause  be  postponed. 

"This  motion  was  agreed  to,  nem.  con. 


"The  committee  then  rose,  and  the  House  ad- 
journed." 

I  need  not  read  from  the  debates  upon  this  sub- 
ject the  reasons  then  given  why  force  should  not 
be  given  to  the  Federal  Government.  After  this 
question  had  been  fully  debated,  and  the  Conven- 
tion had  voted  down  the  proposition  to  give  the 
Federal  Government  the  power  to  force  a  State, 
it  was  believed  that  the  power  should  be  given  to 
negative  the  laws  of  States  that  came  in  conflict 
with  the  General  Government,  and  this  question 
was  debated  at  some  length,  and  with  great  in- 
terest. They  said  it  was  necessary  to  have  some 
provision  to  bind  the  sovereign  States  together, 
and  in  case  of  violation  by  legislation  or  other- 
wise, that  they  might  be  controlled.  But,  when 
this  question  was  considered,  it  was  decided  that 
the  mildest  form  of  force  ought  not  to  be  placed 
in  the  Constitution,  and  it  was  withheld  and  vo- 
ted down.  Can  any  gentleman  affirm,  then,  that 
the  power  to  coerce  or  declare  war  against  a  State 
is  in  the  Constitution,  when  it  was  proposed  and 
voted  down?  It  is  not  expressed — it  is  not  im- 
plied. The  subject  was  debated ;  it  was  proposed, 
and  it  was  rejected;  and  it  is  not  in  tte  Con- 
stitution. Can  any  one  say,  then,  that  the 
General  Government  has  the  power  to  coerce  a 
State?  It  is  not  expressed  in  the  Constitution. 
Is  it  implied?  It  was  proposed,  it  was  debated, 
it  was  voted  down,  and  then  it  cannot  be  implied. 
•Will  any  man  dare  to  take  the  position  to  nega- 
tive the  laws  passed  by  a  seceding  State?  I  tell 
you,  when  the  Constitution  was  made,  the  sub- 
ject was  proposed.  That  subject  was  considered, 
and  our  fathers  decided  it  was  a  dangerous 
power  and  would  destroy  the  Constitution  itself. 
No  man  can  then  affirm  that  the  General  Go- 
vernment has  the  power  either  to  declare  war  for 
or  against.  No  man  can  affirm  that  the  Consti- 
tution, expressed  or  implied,  authorizes  the  coer- 
cion of  any  State  in  this  Union.  No  man  can 
affirm  that  the  Constitution  of  the  United  Slates 
gives  the  power  to  negative  any  law  or  any  act 
passed  by  a  sovereign  State.  It  was  proposed  in 
the  Convention  that  framed  the  Constitution ;  it 
was  debated  and  it  was  voted  down.  Mr.  Ma- 
son, of  Virginia,  said  that  such  power  was  dan- 
gerous to  be  placed  in  the  Federal  Government. 

"  The  most  jarring  elements  of  nature,  fire  and 
water  themselves,  are  not  more  incompatible  than 
such  a  mixture  of  civil  liberty  and  military  exe- 
cution. Will  the  militia  march  from  one  State 
into  another,  in  order  to  collect  the  arrears  of  taxes 
from  the  delinquent  members  of  the  Republic  ? 
Will  they  maintain  an  army  for  this  purpose? 
Will  not  the  citizens  of  the  invaded  States  assist 
one  another,  till  they  rise  as  one  man  and  shake 
off  the  Union  altogether?  Rebellion  is  the  only 
case  in  which  the  military  force  of  the  State  can 
be  properly  exerted  against  its  citizens.  In  one 
point  of  view,  he  was  struck  with  horror  at  the 


102 


prospect  of  recurring  to  this  expedient.  To  pun- 
ish the  non-payment  of  taxes  with  death  was  a 
severity  not  yet  adopted  by  despotism  itself;  yet 
this  unexampled  cruelty  would  be  mercy  com- 
pared to  a  military  collection  of  revenue,  in  which 
the  bayonet  could  make  no  discrimination  be- 
tween the  innocent  and  the  guilty,  He  took  this 
occasion  to  repeat,  that,  notwithstanding  his  so- 
licitude to  establish  a  national  government,  he 
never  would  agree  to  abolish  the  State  govern- 
ments, or  render  them  absolutely  insignificant. 
They  were  as  necessary  as  the  General  Govern- 
ment, and  he  would  be  equally  careful  to  preserve 
them.  He  was  aware  of  the  difficulty  of  drawing 
the  line  between  them,  but  hoped  it  was  not  in- 
surmountable. The  Convention,  though  com- 
prising so  many  distinguished  characters, 
could  not  be  expected  to  make  a  faultless  govern- 
ment; and  he  would  prefer  trusting  to  posterity 
the  amendment  of  its  defects,  rather  than  to  push 
the  experiment  too  far." 

Mr.  President  and  gentlemen  of  the  Conven- 
tion, we  have  arrived  at  the  point,  and  we  affirm 
that  we  have  settled  it  beyond  the  power  of  refu- 
tation, that  this  Federal  Government  cannot 
march  an  armed  force,  by  a  declaration  of  war, 
into  a  defaulting  State— that  it  cannot  coerce- 
that  there  is  no  power  to  negative  a  law.  I  must 
confess  that  all  the  indications  from  the  Govern- 
ment we  are  under  seem  to  be  to  the  effect  that 
the  present  Chief  Executive  of  the  United  States 
intended  to  start  the  doctrine  of  coercion,  and  all 
that  has  been  said  by  that  party  in  Congress,  ex- 
cept a  few,  warrant  me  in  the  conclusion  that  it 
was  their  settled  determination  to  coerce  the 
Southern  States.  I  trust  they  have  abandoned 
that  course.  I  trust,  on  examining  the  laws 
they  have  to  enforce,  and  the  powers,  that  they 
will  abandon  it.  But  I  affirm — acting  the  part  of 
an  humble  member  of  the  people  of  Mis- 
souri— that  Abraham  Lincoln  cannot  march 
an  army  into  one  of  the  seven  States 
unless  it  is  under  the  higher  law.  If  he  goes 
there  without  the  Constitution,  without  the  sanc- 
tion of  law,  he  goes  as  an  instrument  to  destroy 
the  last  hope  of  rebuilding  or  reconstructiong  the 
Union— and  the  sun  of  American  liberty,  as  be- 
fore remarked,  will  set  behind  a  sea  of  blood. 
Then  if  he  has  no  constitutional  right,  if  the 
law  forbid,  can  Missouri  not  have  courage 
enough  in  Convention;  is  she  not  old  enough;  is 
there  not  patriotic  blood  enough  in  this  Conven- 
tion to  stand  by  the  rights  of  the  Constitution  of 
the  State  of  Missouri,  to  say  that  if  you  go  under 
th*  higher  laAv  into  that  war,  we  will  not  aid  you 
in  men  or  money.  Why,  it  is  strange  that  a  man 
that  lives  in  a  slaveholding  State— it  is  strange 
that  a  man  who  believes  our  institutions  are 
right,  could  refuse  to  say  that  the  sons  of  Mis- 
souri will  not  engage  in  a  war  like  this.  It  would 
be    dreadful  enough   for   us    to  go   into  these 


States — it  would  be  dreadful  enough  to  do  this, 
if  the  Constitution  required,  and  if  our  honor  and 
our  flag  required  us  to  go.  That  we  should  go  into 
a  land  where  we  were  born,  where  the  church 
yards  are  filled  with  our  kindred,  and  where  we 
should  shed  the  blood  of  our  kindred;  and  it 
would  be  too  horrible  for  human  nature  to  con- 
template the  consequences.  It  is  a  spectacle  at 
which  humanity,  as  this  report  says,  would 
shrink  and  fly  away.  I  say  Missouri  never  will 
do  it.  Her  Convention  may  say  so,  but  its  mem- 
bers will  be  compelled  to  seleet  a  commander 
out  of  their  own  forces  to  fight  their  own  battles. 
I  tell  you  when  an  army  engages  in  a  war  against 
the  Constitution  of  the  United  States,  against  the 
laws  of  the  land,  against  humanity,  the  God 
of  battles  that  sustained  Washington  in  the 
American  Army,  will  be  upon  the  side  of  that 
oppressed  people,  however  wrong  they  may  be, 
and  victory  in  every  battle  will  belong  to  them. 
Our  friends  in  Illinois  say,  believing  that  Lin- 
coln intends  coercion,  you  cannot  do  it. 
They  say  you  shall  not  do  it.  They 
say  our  friends  and  kindred  are  in  those  States, 
and  we  want  this  Government  reunited,  and 
it  cannot  be  done  if  you  commence  coercing 
those  States,  and,  raise  your  army  in  Springfield 
or  Chicago,  and  attempt  to  march  it  into  those 
States,  it  will  first  have  to  march  over  our  dead 
bodies. 

Will  the  Missouri  Convention  be  less  patriotic 
and  less  bold  than  the  State  of  Illinois  ?  They 
say,  we  do  not  approve  of  the  course  of  the 
South ;  we  are  sorry  they  have  taken  the  step, 
but  the  North  is  in  fault,  and  their  orators  say, 
in  language  not  to  be  misunderstood,  that  it  was 
the  election  of  a  President  upon  a  sectional  plat- 
form that  nullified  the  Constitution  and  Southern 
rights.  Ohio  speaks  out  through  her  two  hun- 
dred thousand  Democrats,  and  they  send  greet- 
ing North  and  South,  not  in  language  you  have 
heard  upon  this  floor — not  at  all.  They  say  to 
the  North,  put  yourself  right  upon  the  record, 
repeal  your  obnoxious  laws — put  yourself  right 
before  you  complain  of  the  action  of  the  Southern 
States.  Why  is  it,  then,  gentlemen  of  the  Con- 
vention, that  we  cannot  say  to  the  North  that 
you  have  done  slightly  wrong — that  we  dare  not 
tell  them  of  their  errors  ?  Why,  is  it  that  we  will 
give  offense  ?  I  want  to  speak  like  a  man,  I  want 
to  speak  in  a  conservative  tone,  and  I  want  to 
give  no  offense  to  the  North  or  South;  but  I  want 
to  demand  what  is  right  and  submit  to  nothing 
that  is  wrong,  that  will  compromise  the  honor  of 
the  State. 

Gentlemen  of  the  Convention,  I  am  satisfied  I 
am  Avcarying  your  patience,  and  speaking  longer 
than  I  should,  but  I  do  not  expect  to  trouble  you 
again,  and  as  my  District  has  said  but  little  in 
this  Convention,  I  desire  to  consider  one  or  two 
other  questions.    I  pass  over  a  number  of  extracts 


103 


from  these  debates  that  I  intended  to  have  read, 
hut  I  see  it  will  take  too  much  time.  I  desire, 
however,  to  give  the  following  resolution,  which 
was  drawn  by  Mr.  Jefferson : 

"Resolved,  That  the  several  States  composing 
the  United  States  of  America  are  not  united  on 
the  principle  of  unlimited  submission  to  their 
General  Government;  but  that  by  compact,  under 
the  style  and  title  of  a  Constitution  for  the  Uni- 
ted States,  and  of  amendments  thereto,  they  con- 
stituted a  General  Government  for  special  pur- 
poses, delegated  to  that  Government  certain  defi- 
nite powers,  reserving  each  State  to  itself  the  re- 
siduary mass  of  right  to  their  own  self-govern- 
ment ;  and  that  whensoever  the  General  Govern- 
ment assumes  undelegated  powers,  its  acts  are 
unauthoritative,  void,  and  of  no  force;  that  to 
this  compact  each  State  acceded  as  a  State,  and 
is  an  integral  party ;  that  this  Government,  crea- 
ted by  this  compact,  was  not  made  the  exclusive 
or  final  judge  of  the  extent  of  the  powers  dele- 
gated to  itself,  since  that  would  have  made  its 
discretion,  and  not  the  Constitution,  the  measure 
of  its  power;  hut  that  as  in  all  other  cases  of 
compact  among  parties  having  no  common 
judge,  each  party  has  an  equal  right  to  judge 
for  itself  as  well  of  infractions  as  of  the  mode 
and  measure  of  redress." 

But  I  propose  to  inquire  for  a  short  time  what 
Missouri  should  do  and  what  position  she  should 
occupy,  that  I  misrht  lay  down  before  you  what  I 
think  to  be  the  desire  of  the  people,  and  that  I 
may  reflect  their  will,  and  that  they  may  see  that 
I  am  carrying  out  my  pledges  and  the  promises  I 
made  to  them.  I  regret,  exceedingly,  that  the  dis- 
tinguished gentleman  that  read  the  report  has 
said,  or  used  the  argument,  that  if  Missouri  should 
connect  herself  with  a  Southern  Condfederacy,  it 
would  be  annihilation.  I  cannot  think  the  one 
hundred  and  seventy  thousand  freemen  of  this 
State,  with  friends  in  Illinois,  Iowa  and  in  Kansas ; 
I  cannot  realize,  that  under  these  circumstances, 
that  this  mighty  State  of  ours  can  be  annihila- 
ted. I  do  not  indorse  the  sentiment.  I  have  all 
respect  for  that  distinguished  gentlemen,  and  the 
Committee  which  reported  the  resolution,  but  I 
deny  the  position  assumed  there,  that  if  Missouri 
should  connect  herself  with  the  Southern  Con- 
federacy she  would  be  annihilated.  I  am  willing 
to  admit,  that  if  we  connect  ourselves  with  the 
North— if  there  is  a  division,  and  the  other  four- 
teen slave  States  shall  form  a  Southern  Republic— 
and  Ave  should  go  with  the  North,  under  those 
circumstances,  as  I  before  remarked,  we  will  sus- 
tain a  loss.  If  we  go  with  the  South  we  sustain 
a  loss,  beyond  all  sort  of  doubt.  Her  taxes  will 
be  burdensome,,  and  we  shall  have  to  endure  many 
privations  that  we  do  not  experience  at  present. 
Seven  States  are  out  of  the  Union  now,  and  oth- 
ers are  saying  that,  unless  there  are  constitutional 
guarantees,  they  will  go  with  the  Southern  States. 


Is  it  intended  by  this  Convention— is  that  the 
tone  and  sentiment  that  is  to  go  North  and 
South — that  if  the  Government  is  dissolved,  if 
two  confederacies  are  established,  that  Missouri 
shall  remain  in  the  Northern  Confederacy,  and 
prefer  it  to  the  South  ?  That  may  be  the  senti- 
ment of  every  member  of  this  Convention  but 
one.  I  assert  in  my  place  to-day,  and  I  have  the 
independence  to  do  it — and  I  want  that  recorded 
now,  and  in  all  future  time — that  if  the  other  re- 
maining slave  States  shall  form  a  separate  Con- 
federacy— when  all  hope  of  reuniting  the  Gov- 
ernment is  gone,  when  the  heart  of  the  North 
that  has  been  so  cold  has  grown  colder,  and 
they  shall  say,  in  the  language  of  Wade :  "The 
day  of  compromise  is  past,"  we  have  a  great  na- 
tional victory  upon  a  sectional  platform,  and  we 
are  not  anxious  to  compromise — then,  I  say,  when 
that  time  shall  come,  when  this  Union  is  dis- 
solved, when  there  is  a  Northern  and  Southern 
Confederacy,  then,  for  one,  I  am  in  favor  of  Mis- 
souri taking  her  stand  with  her  Southern  breth- 
eren  in  the  Southern  States.     [Applause.] 

The  Chair.  Those  gentlemen  who  applauded 
must  leave  the  galleries.  Mr.  Sergeant-at-Arms, 
you  will  see  that  those  gentlemen  who  have  ap- 
plauded will  leave  the  galleries  at  once.  I  have 
requested  gentlemen  politely  long  enough,  to  re- 
frain from  demonstrations  of  this  character,  and 
I  will  and  must  preserve  order. 

Mr.  Gantt.  I  hope  that  order  will  be  limited 
to  those  who  have  offended. 

Mr.  Bass.  The  time  for  adjournment  has  ar- 
rived. I  move  that  the  Convention  now  ad- 
journ. 

Mr.  Birch.  Before  the  motion  is  put,  I  desire 
to  present  a  report. 

Mr.  Moss.  I  hope  the  motion  to  adjourn  will 
be  withdrawn.  It  is  not  12  o'clock.  The  gentle- 
man who  is  now  speaking  will  have  time  to  get 
through. 

Mr.  Gantt.  I  hope  so  too.  I  think  that  by 
having  but  one  session  a  day,  and  by  sitting  here 
continuously  without  the  interruption  of  an  ad- 
journment, we  can  get  along  with  greater  con- 
venience to  ourselves  and  better  dispatch  of  busi- 
ness. 

Mr.  Bass.    I  withdraw  the  motion  to  adjourn. 

The  Secretary  then  read  the  report  as  presented 
by  Mr.  Birch,  as  follows : 

The  committee,  appointed  under  a  resolution  of 
the  Convention,  adopted  on  the  11th  inst.,  to  in- 
quire into  the  conspiracy  which  was  deemed  to 
be  foreshadowed  in  a  communication  that  ap- 
peared in  the  Republican  of  that  morning,  re- 
port herewith  a  communication  from  Lewis  V. 
Bogy  and  from  Wm,  J.  Chester,  and  respectfully 
submit  themselves  to  such  further  direction,  if 
any,  as  the  Convention  may  see  fit  to  give  them. 
If,  however,  it  shall  be  believed  from  these 
statements    that    any  purpose  which  may  have 


104 


existed  to  wrest  the  State  from  its  legitimate 
relations  to  the  Federal  Government  by  illegal, 
perverse  or  revolutionary  agencies,  has  been 
abandoned  in  deference  to  the  unfaltering  and 
overwhelming  public  sentiment  with  which  it 
has  been  conft-onted,  it  is  then  further  respect- 
fully submitted  whether  the  interests  of  the  pub- 
lic require  that  any  further  steps  be  taken,  or  any 
further  investigations  be  prosecuted  under  the 
resolution  of  the  Convention. 

JAMES  H.  BIRCH,         ) 

CHAS.  DRAKE,  }  Committee. 

G.  W.  ZIMMERMAN,     ) 

St.  Louis,  March  12,  1861. 
Messrs.  Birch,  Zimmerman  and  Drake,  Commit- 
tee, &c,  Present: 

Gentlemen:  I  was  summoned  yesterday  to  ap- 
pear before  you,  as  a  Committee,  appointed  by  the 
State  Convention  now  in  session  in  this  city,  to  testi- 
fy to  certain  facts  supposed  to  be  within  my  knowl- 
edge. In  appearing  before  you,  I  wish  it  distinctly 
understood  that  I  do  so  voluntarily,  as  I  deny  both 
the  power  of  the  Convention,  or  that  of  a  committee 
appointed  by  it,  to  summon  any  citizen  of  the  State 
to  appear  before  it  as  a  witness;  this  power  belongs 
to  the  Grand  Juries  of  the  country,  and  is  a  power 
used  to  ferret  out  crime  by  them ;  but  entertaining, 
as  I  do,  the  greatest  respect  for  the  Convention  as  a 
body  called  into  existence  under  a  law  of  the  State, 
and  also  for  the  members  thereof  personally,  I 
waive  what  I  consider  my  right  as  a  citizen,  and  ac- 
cordingly appear. 

The  publication  which  appe  ared  in  the  Missouri 
Republican,  over  the  signature  of  E.,  is  not  substan- 
tially correct,  as  containing  the  substance  of  a  con- 
versation between  me  and  the  person  who  is  sup- 
posed to  be  the  author  of  it. 

I  have  read  the  resolutions  of  the  Convention  and 
the  speech  of  the  mover  of  them,  and  I  must  confess 
that  I  am  at  a  loss  to  understand  how  either  could 
justify  the  charge  made,  based  on  the  communica- 
tion. In  justice,  however,  to  the  persons  who  called 
on  me,  and  who  are  charged  with  the  crime 
of  treason,  I  must  say  that  I  know  nothing  what- 
ever to  sustain  the  charge.  Certain  gentle- 
men of  standing  in  this  city,  and  who 
are  my  personal  and  political  friends,  did  call  on  me 
last  week,  with  a  paper  which  was  very  well  written, 
setting  forth  that  the  time  had  come— in  view  of  the 
fact  that  Virginia  had,  or  would  soon  join  the  South- 
ern Confederacy,  and  carry  with  her  Kentucky  and 
the  other  Border  States — for  the  friends  of  Southern 
rights  to  come  together  for  consultation,  and  with  a 
view  of  agreeing  on  some  line  of  policy  required  by 
the  exigencies  of  the  times  The  conversation  be- 
tween these  gentlemen  and  myself  was  of  a  desultory 
and  general  character,  and  it  is  with  hesitation  that 
I  consent  to  trouble  you  withit,  for  it  really  amounts 
to  nothing  beyond  a  legitimate  purpose  of  party  or- 
ganization in  which  there  was  nothing  improper  or 
wrong,  and  only  with  a  view  of  making  their  action 
efficient.  Although  I  dissented  from  them,  as  to  the 
propriety  of  this  course,  yet  my  objection  was  not 
becau  e  there  was  anything  wrong  or  improper  in 
the  proposition,  but  because  I  thought  the  movement 
was  calculated  to  do  harm,  in  view  of  the  efforts  now 


being  made  to  unite  the  Democratic  and  Bell  parties 
on  some  common  conservative  ground  to  defeat  the 
Black  Republicans  at  the  next  April  election.  I  fur- 
thermore explained  to  them  that  according  to  my 
understanding  of  the  interests  of  Missouri,  with 
twenty  millions  of  State  Bonds  and  six  to  eight  mil- 
lions of  city  and  county  Bonds  on  the  markets  of 
the  world,  and  the  great  interests  of  the  mercantile, 
manufacturing  and  industrial  portions  of  the  people, 
we  should  move,  in  a  matter  of  this  magnitude,  with 
the  greatest  caution  and  prudence.  Some  of  the 
gentlemen  present  charging  me  with  inconsistency 
and  as  a  blind  follower  of  the  Missouri  Republican, 
I  replied  that  the  charge  was  not  true,  that  I  was  a 
Southern  man,  and  always  had  been,  and  was  as 
much  opposed  to  Black  Republicanism  as  anybody 
could  possibly  be,  but  looking  upon  the  effort  as  cal- 
culated to  bring  defeat  upon  us  again  at  the  next 
April  election,  I  was  opposed  to  their  movement,  and 
would  do  all  in  my  power  to  defeat  their  purposes. 

Much  now  might  be  repeated  of  the  same  nature, 
but  the  matter  is  too  trivial  to  engage  the  attention 
of  anybody.  I  certainly  did  not  understand  that  any 
proposition  was  made  to  me  looking  like  treason  or 
conspiracy,  or  that  can  by  any  distortion  of  language 
or  confusion  of  ideas,  amount  to  the  highest  crime 
known  to  civilized  nations.  The  subject  was  fair  and 
legitimate,  as  a  purpose  for  party  organization  by 
gentlemen  of  good  standing,  and  as  such  I  under- 
stood it,  and  opposed  it  for  the  reasons  already  given. 
My  object  in  speaking  of  this  occurrence  to  other 
parties  was  to  get  them  to  unite  with  me  to  prevent 
the  proposed  organization,  believing,  if  successful,  it 
would  again  lead  to  our  defeat. 

No  one  regrets  this  occurrence  more  than  1  do,  as 
it  is  calculated  to  place  other  parties,  as  well  as  my- 
self, in  an  unpleasant  position. 

The  facts  do  not  in  the  least  justify  the  action  of 
the  Convention,  the  speech  of  the  mover  of  the  reso- 
lutions, or  the  comments  of  one  of  the  city  papers. 

Repeating  my  sentiments  of  respect  for  the  Con- 
vention, I  am,  &c,  LEWIS  V.  BOGY. 

8.  B.— As  the  action  of  the  Convention  in  relation 
to  this  matter  has  been  the  occasion  of  a  good  deal 
of  talk  in  the  city,  to  my  prejudice,  I  have  concluded 
to  send  a  copy  of  this  paper  to  the  Missouri  Republi- 
can for  publication  to-morrow  morning,  so  that  the 
matter  may  be  set  right  before  the  community  at 
once.  LEWIS  V.  BOGY. 

St.  Louis,  March  13. 
To  Messrs.  Birch,  Drake  and  Zimmerman,  Com- 
mittee of  the  Convention,  &c: 
Gentlemen  :  Having  appeared  before  you,  in 
compliance  with  your  subpoena,  I  proceed  to 
make  such  a  statement  as  you  have  requested  of 
me,  omitting  the  name  of  th3  person  to  whom  I 
shall  allude;  and  also  declining  to  swear  to  any 
statement  at  the  present  time;  but  will  not  refuse 
to  surrender  the  name  of  the  person,  or  to  swear 
to  what  I  shall  have  stated,  if  required  to  do  so 
by  an  order  of  the  Convention. 

On  the  second  or  third  day  of  the  session  of 
your  Convention  in  this  place,  I  met  with  a  gen- 
tleman, residing  in  one  of  the  interior  counties  of 
the  State,  one  whom  I  had  known  as  a  friend  and 


105 


admirer  of  Mr.  Yancey,  of  Alabama,  and,  like 
that  gentleman,  a  thorough  and  undisguised  se- 
cessionist. He  told  me  that  your  Convention  was 
too  conservative,  and  that,  in  case  you  passed  no 
secession  ordinance,  there  would  be  a  concert  of 
action  agreed  upon  throughout  the  State,  where- 
by the  State  would,  nevertheless,  be  got  out  of 
the  Union.  He  further  said,  that  there  were  at 
that  time  delegates,  or  committees,  in  the  city 
from  nearly  all  the  principal  towns  in  the  State, 
and  that  he  understood  there  was  to  be  a  meeting 
of  them  for  the  purpose  of  agreeing  upon 
a  definite  course  and  concert  of  action. 
He  mentioned  especially  the  name  of  a  distin- 
guished citizen  of  this  State,  who  has  encouraged 
the  movement,  but  whose  name,  for  the  reason 
already  stated,  I  decline  to  give  at  present.  Two 
days  after  this,  I  met  the  same  gentleman,  and 
the  conversation  was  renewed.  He  then  said 
that  he  believed  the  plan  above  stated  had  been 
abandoned,  as  it  would  be  useless  to  attempt  to 
carry  it  out  at  present,  against  what  seemed  to 
be  the  strong  Union  sentiment  that  had  taken 
hold  of  the  public  mind. 

In  this  statement  I  have  given  but  the  substance 
of  the  conversation  alluded  to,  and  do  not  pre- 
tend to  have  stated  the  words,  but  the  substan- 
tial facts.  Very  Respectfully, 

WM.  J.  CHESTER. 

Mr.  Hall,  of  Buchanan.  Is  it  the  object  to 
break  into  the  proceedings  with  that  report  ?  If 
so,  I  object. 

Mr.  Birch.  I  only  desire,  Mr.  President,  to 
move  that  the  report  be  laid  upon  the  table  and 
printed,  so  as  not  to  occupy  any  time  of  the 
Convention.  I  merely  desire  to  get  it  before  the 
Convention. 

The  report  was  ordered  to  be  printed. 

Mr.  Hudgixs.  Gentlemen  of  the  Convention, 
when  the  interruption  occurred,  I  was  affirming 
that,  in  my  judgment,  if  there  were  two  republics 
formed,  it  was  the  duty  of  Missouri  to  go  into 
the  Southern  Republic.  I  desire  to  make  only  a 
statement  or  two  upon  this  subject  and  close  my 
remarks.  I  cannot  for  one  moment  think  that 
Missouri  intends,  or  that  this  Convention  will 
say  that  it  is  the  duty  of  Missouri  to  submit. 
When  I  look  back  over  our  State,  I  find  that  there 
are  nearly  one  hundred  million  dollars  of  slave 
property  in  it.  I  say,  our  citizens  that  have 
been  here  plowing,  and  felling  timber,  and  mak- 
ing their  farms — that  have  emigrated  from  other 
States— that  have  settled  here  to  live  and  die  upon 
Missouri  soil,  and  have  buried  their  dead  in  it — 
that  have  built  our  roads,  our  school  houses, 
our  mills,  churches,  and  Court  Houses  all 
through  the  State,  expect  to  enjoy  these  privi- 
leges, and  leave  them  for  their  children. 
The  politicians  in  the  State  of  Missouri,  who 
presume  for  one  moment  that  Missouri  will 
sacrifice  her  honor;  that  she  will  give  up  its  con- 


stitution and  bow  down  to  Northern  aggression, 
are  mistaken  in  regard  to  a  noble  and  generous 
people.  I  tell  you,  let  the  slaves  go,  if  go  they 
must;  let  the  real  estate  be  sacrificed,  but 
let  our  honor  as  freemen  be  sustained  in 
the  State.  Let  us  show  that  we  will  not  sub- 
mit. I  can  realize  the  feelings  of  a  Repub- 
lican, when  he  desires  Missouri  to  stay  with 
the  Northern  Confederacy.  He  desires  slavery 
abolished,  and  if  the  State  should  hold  on  to  the 
Northern  Confederacy  it  would  be  abolished  in  a 
few  years.  The  man  that  believes  that  the  slave 
States  have  the  right  to  hold  slaves,  that  is  will- 
ing to  accept  Northern  aggression  after  fourteen 
stars  have  been  driven  from  the  Star  Spangled 
Banner,  and  who  wants  Missouri  to  bow  with  hei 
institutions  down  to  kiss  the  rod  that  afflicts  her, 
I  tell  you  that  the  politician  who  makes 
that  sale  of  the  State  in  this  Conven" 
tion,  will  have  to  meet  justice  at  the 
hands  of  an  insulted  and  outraged  people.  They 
never  will  submit  to  it.  It  would  ruin  them  to  do 
it.  They  are  not  willing  thus  to  give  up  their 
property.  Many  of  them  would  lose  all  they 
had.  Moreover  they  are  not  willing  thus 
to  give  them  up  when  the  alternative  is  pre- 
sented of  uniting  with  the  Southern  Confederacy, 
if  one  is  to  be  made.  I  say,  if  I  know  the  feel- 
ings of  the  people  of  Missouri,  and  of  that  por- 
tion of  the  country  in  which  I  live,  they  will 
stake  their  destiny  with  the  South.  They  say, 
we  desire  to  separate  from  you  in  peace — as 
American  citizens  we  love  you,  and  especially 
that  portion  whose  hearts  beat  in  unison  with 
ours.  But  we  desire  a  separation  in  peace.  But 
when  the  President  of  the  United  States  com- 
mands Missouri,  under  the  higher  law,  to  shed 
the  blood  of  our  brothers  in  the  South,  then  I 
say  Missouri  should  throw  herself  upon  her  re- 
served rights,  and,  taking  the  halter  in  one  hand 
and  the  sword  in  the  other,  tell  the  President  that 
when  you  take  the  one  you  can  use  the  other,  and 
not  before.  I  have  no  submission  blood  in  me. 
If  I  had  I  would  let  it  out  of  my 
veins.  I  am  willing  to  compromise.  I  am 
willing  to  receive  the  Crittenden  amendment,  and 
to  declare  that  all  north  of  36  deg.  30  min.  shall 
be  all  free,  and  all  south  shall  be  all  slave.  Then 
the  Kansas  raids  and  emigrant  aid  societies  would 
never  be  heard  of,  and  this  vexed  question  would 
not  enter  into  our  politics.  I  am  willing  to  get 
rid  of  the  question  in  that  way,  but  I  am  not  will- 
ing to  leave  it  to  be  disposed  of  by  the  next  gen- 
eration. But  if  you  want  compromise,  you  can- 
not obtain  it,  except  by  insisting  upon  it.  Can 
we  expect  to  obtain  it,  looking  at  the  past,  if  we 
say  to  the  North  that  whether  you  give  us  the 
guarantees  or  not,  whether  you  are  willing 
to  adopt  the  Crittenden  amendment  or  any 
amendment  whatever,  we  are  unconditional  Union 
men  in  Missouri. 


106 


Tell  mc  now  many  million  of  States  of  that  kind 
in  this  Union  would  reach  the  Northern  pulse  ? 
We  are  told  that  they  are  signing  petitions  and 
that  they  are  changing.  Tell  me  what  has  chang- 
ed them,  and  what  has  affected  the  North  ?  what 
has  destroyed  or  changed  them  in  their  senti- 
ments ?  It  is  because  of  the  withdrawal  of  these 
seven  States  and  the  prospect  of  the  withdrawal 
of  others,  and  of  the  ruin  of  their  commerce  and 
the  prosperity  of  the  country,  that  is  now  threat- 
ening them.  Missouri  will  make  no  threat;  let 
her  stand  by  the  South ;  but  let  her  call  upon  the 
North  and  say  in  language  not  to  be  misunder- 
stood, that  these  guarantees  must  be  granted  or 
we  connect  ourselves  with  the  Southern  States ; 
and  when  we  have  given  you  reasonable  time — 
when  we  have  appealed  to  the  great  heart  of  the 
whole  people,  if  then  they  shall  say  no  compro- 
mise shall  be  made,  then  we  will  stand  with  the 
Southern  States.  Gentlemen  of  the  Convention, 
if  the  State  of  Missouri  occupies  this  position, 
then  she  will  have  opinions  that  will  be  respected 
at  the  North  and  in  the  South.  Then,  when  com- 
promise has  been  offered  by  the  South,  Missouri 
can  say  to  both  North  and  South,  you  are  breth- 
ren, we  stand  between  you  and  ruin.  And  if  the 
border  States  cannot  restore  this  friendly  feeling, 
then  no  earthly  power  can  do  it. 

I  am  in  favor  of  this  amendment  to  the  resolution. 
It  says  we  will  not  furnish  men  and  money.  "We 
have  been  told,  I  believe,  by  the  gentleman  from 
Randolph,  that  if  the  Administration  called  for 
men,  we  would  be  setting  at  defiance  the  Consti- 
tution. I  have  shown  you  that  the  sending  of  an 
army  to  the  Southern  States  could  only  be  done 
under  the  higher  law,  and  not  under  the  Constitu- 
tion of  the  United  States.  I  have  shown  you  that 
we  have  the  right  to  speak  in  the  language  of  this 
resolution,  and  it  is  the  duty  of  Missouri  not  to 
aid,  and  not  to  furnish  men,  and  not  to  go  into 
this  conflict. 

Gentlemen  of  the  Convention,  I  have  occupied 
more  time  than  I  expected.  I  have  been  longer 
before  you  than  I  should  have  been,  but  I  have 
submitted  candidly,  and  with  a  due  regard  and 
respect  for  every  member  of  this  Convention,  and 
every  individual  that  is  here  to-day,  what  I  have 
asserted  in  regard  to  the  position  of  Missouri.  It  is 
the  ground  upon  which  my  people  sent  me  here. 
I  came  to  say  in  this  Convention  that  Missouri 
desires  to  exert  every  means  that  is  fair  and  hon- 
orable to  unite  the  North  and  the  South  as  breth- 
ren in  one  common  country  and  destiny.  I 
want  every  effort  made  that  the  State  can  make 
in  honor  to  itself,  to  accomplish  this  result.  If 
the  fourteen  States  are  to  unite  with  the  oth- 
er slave  States  and  go  with  the  South,  all 
hope  of  reconciliation  is  gone  and  then 
my  wish  is,  at  that  time,  when  the  Union  Avill 
have  been  dissolved,  that  Missouri  will  not 
have  to  secede,  but  take  her  choice  between  the 


North  and  the  South.  I  am  for  taking,  as  I  said 
before,  the  Southern  side  of  this  question,  if  the 
President  of  the  United  States  shall  attempt 
force  and  shall  attempt  a  war  upon  the  Southern 
States,  and  if  he  calls  upon  Missouri  for  men  to 
go  into  that  war,  I  am  not  willing  that  our  citi- 
zens should  hazard  treason,  or  that  they  shall  be 
drafted.  I  am  not  willing  that  they  shall  be 
marched  into  any  State  in  such  a  war,  but  in 
that  contingency  I  shall  be  in  favor  of  this  Con- 
vention assembling  and  placing  themselves  upon 
their  reserved  rights,  and  say  to  the  President,  as 
we  say  in  this  resolution,  that  we  will  not  aid 
you. 

Mr.  Fostek.  I  desire  to  make  a  few  remarks 
upon  the  question  under  consideration. 

Mr.  Welch.  As  it  is  now  12  o'clock,  I  move 
an  adjournment  of  the  Convention. 

Motion  sustained. 


AFTERNOON   SESSION 

Convention  re-assembled  at  2  o'clock. 

Mr.  Foster.  Mr.  President,  I  hope  it  may  not 
be  considered  an  assumption  on  my  part  to  leave 
my  seat  and  address  this  Convention  from  a  place 
near  the  Chair — being  one  of  the  lesser  lights  in 
this  body,  and  unable,  in  an  oratorical  point  of 
view,  to  cope  with  many  of  the  gentlemen  who 
have  preceded  me,  and  many  who  will  speak  af- 
ter me.  I  come  up  here,  sir,  merely  that  I  may 
be  the  better  understood  by  the  Convention,  and 
because,  by  standing  here,  I  can  speak  with 
greater  ease  to  myself  than  if  I  was  in  my  seat. 

In  investigating  the  matters  which  are  now 
submitted  for  consideration  by  this  body,  I  shall 
try  to  be  fair  and  candid.  Although  I  may  not 
be  able  to  say  anything  that  will  be  edifying  to 
the  members  of  this  Convention,  yet,  as  a  repre- 
sentative of  a  portion  of  the  people  of  Missouri,  I 
believe  it  to  be  my  duty  to  declare  the  sentiments 
which  the  people  of  my  district  hold  in  regard  to 
the  resolutions  under  consideration.  I  have 
risen,  sir,  not  for  the  purpose  of  making  a  bun- 
combe speech,  or  a  speech  for  political  pur- 
poses. I  never  held  a  political  office  in  my 
life,  nor  do  I  know  that  I  ever  shall 
hold  one.  The  motives  which  actuate  me  in 
speaking  on  this  occasion,  are  of  a  higher  charac- 
ter than  those  underlying  the  delivery  of  political 
speeches  or  war  speeches  or  anything  of  the 
kind.  They  are  those  of  patriotism— they  are 
love  for  my  country  and  a  willingness  and  deter- 
mination to  represent  my  constituents  truly  on 
this  floor.  I  believe  it  is  usual  in  debates  of  this 
kind  that  gentlemen  holding  different  views  alter- 
nate in  occupying  the  floor.  And  here  let  me 
remark,  that  while  it  may  be  expected  that  I  dif- 
fer with  the  gentleman  who  has  preceded  me  in 


107 


many  of  the  points  advanced  by  him,  still  it  is 
not  my  purpose  to  follow  him  through  all  his  ar- 
guments. I  shall  take  occasion  to  allude  to  some 
of  them  as  I  proceed  with  my  remarks.  It  must 
certainly  be  regarded  as  a  highly  enviable  posi- 
tion for  me,  acknowledging  myself,  as  I  do,  to  be 
one  of  the  humblest  members  ot  this  Convention, 
and  one  of  its  lesser  lights — I  say  it  must  be  re- 
garded as  an  enviable  position  for  me  to  be  able 
to  reply  to  a  gentleman  so  far  my  superior  in 
debate,  so  talented  and  brilliant  in  the  presenta- 
tion of  his  views  before  a  deliberative  assembly, 
as  the  gentleman  who  has  preceded  me.  I  con- 
fess that  I  shall  feel  some  embarrassment  in  at- 
tempting a  reply  to  the  all-absorbing  war-speech 
which  we  have  heard  from  him.  I  fear  I  shall 
net  be  able  to  meet  his  argument,  because  he  is  a 
powerful  man ;  but  while  I  do  not  expect  to  fol- 
low him  through  all  the  meanderings  of  his  no- 
tions, it  is  yet  gratifying  to  me  to  know  that,  ele- 
vated as  I  have  been  to  come  up  to  this  stand,  I 
shall  for  a  few  moments  occupy  the  same  stand 
which  one  of  the  great  lights  of  this  Convention 
has  so  ably  occupied. 

Gentlemen  of  the  Convention :  In  regard  to  the 
powers  of  Government  of  which  that  gentleman 
has  spoken,  I  agree  with  him  to  some  extent.  I 
agree  with  him  in  holding  that  we  have  a  com- 
plete system  of  government,  and  that  all  the  pow- 
er that  the  General  Government  can  exercise  is 
derived  solely  from  the  Constitution.  I  am  one 
of  those  individuals  who  may  be  called  strict 
constructionists  of  the  Constitution  of  this 
country.  He  says,  further,  that  this  Government 
has  power  to  levy  war  upon  a  foreign  nation,  but 
that  it  has  no  power  to  levy  Avar  against  a  sister 
State. 

Now,  if  he  put  this  proposition  by  itself,  it 
would  certainly  recommend  itself  to  my  mind  for 
its  justness  and  plausibility.  But  he,  at  the  same 
time,  argues  that  seven  States  have  dissolved 
their  connection  with  the  Federal  Government — 
that  they  have  gone  out  of  the  Union ;  and  I  would 
ask  him  whether,  such  being  the  case,  they  can 
still  be  regarded  as  sister  States  ?  or  whether  they 
must  be  looked  upon  by  the  General  Government 
in  the  light  of  foreign  nations  ?  If  it  be  true  that 
those  States  have  gone  out,  and  it  be,  furthermore, 
true,  that  the  General  Government  has  power  to 
levy  war  against  a  foreign  nation,  does  it  not  fol- 
low that,  if  circumstances  should  require,  the 
General  Government  must  treat  them  as  any  oth- 
er foreign  nation? 

But  admitting,  for  a  moment,  that  those  States 
have  not  goue  out— admitting  that  they  are  still 
included  in  the  American  sisterhood,  let  me  ask 
the  gentleman  if  the  Constitution  does  not  confer 
ample  power  upon  the  Executive  to  repel  insur- 
rections and  invasions  by  the  people  of  one  State 
upon  the  people  of  another  State? 

A  Voice.  No. 


Mr.  Foster.  A  voice  behind  me  says  no. 
Well,  gentlemen  of  the  Convention,  all  I  have  to 
say  in  regard  to  that  is,  that  this  voice  and  the 
Constitution  of  my  country  are  at  variance.  I 
have  no  argument  to  make  to  any  individual  or 
assembly  of  individuals  to  convince  them  that  the 
broad  declaration  of  the  Constitution  of  my  coun- 
try is  such  as  it  is.  I  have  stated  it  correctly,  and 
I  will  abide  by  it,  because  I  was  taught  from  my 
earliest  infancy  to  believe  that  the  Constitution  of 
the  United  States  and  the  laws  enacted  by  Con- 
gress in  accordance  therewith  shallbe  the  supreme 
law  of  the  land,  the  laws  of  any  State  to  the  con- 
trary notwithstanding.  I  repeat  it,  gentlemen, 
that  this  was  one  of  my  earliest  lessons  I  learned 
in  connection  with  the  powers  of  my  Government. 
I  do  not  propose  to  consume  the  time  of  this  Con- 
vention in  dwelling  longer  upon  that  point.  I 
will  now  proceed  to  consider  the  situation  of  Mis- 
souri for  a  few  moments.  Look  at  yonder  flag, 
if  you  please,  and  behold  Missouri,  as  shin- 
ing forth  in  the  constellation  of  States  as 
one  of  the  central  stars  in  the  West,  and  ask 
yourselves  the  question,  what  is  the  proper 
position  for  Missouri  to  occupy  under  ex- 
isting circumstances  ?  Now,  gentlemen,  I  hold 
it  to  be  a  truth  that,  as  was  remarked  by  my 
friend  from  Marion,  on  the  day  before  yesterday, 
Missouri  could  turn  out  more  fighting  men 
than  any  other  slave  State  in  the  Union;  and  I 
will  add  that,  if  circumstances  require  it,  she 
would  do  so.  I  will  add,  further,,  that  I  believe 
that  Missouri  to-day  can  turn  out  more  Union, 
Constitution-loving  men,  than  any  two  Southern 
States  in  this  Confederacy.  Then,  gentlemen,  the 
question  arises,  as  I  have  suggested,  as  to  what 
is  the  proper  position  for  Missouri  to  occupy.  I 
think  the  proper  answer  to  this  question  is  of  the 
most  vital  importance.  What  is  the  answer 
given  by  the  Committee  on  Federal  Relations  ? 
What  does  that  report  contain  ?  In  considering 
the  resolutions  offered  by  the  Committee,  I  desire 
to  give  a  fair  and  candid  expression  of  my  sen- 
timents, and  the  sentiments  of  the  people  whom  I 
am  representing  on  this  floor.  I  do  not  intend, 
by  any  remark  that  I  may  make,  to  reproach  any 
gentlemen  who  is  a  member  of  this  Convention, 
and  who,  for  causes  satisfactory  to  himself,  dis- 
agrees with  me  in  regard  to  this  report.  I  do  not 
design  to  heap  epithets  upon  the  people  of  the 
North,  nor  to  heap  epithets  upon  the  people  of 
the  South;  but  in  speaking  of  the  wrongs  and 
pointing  out  the  errors  of  both  sections,  I  shall 
proceed  with  candor  and  moderation,  extending 
my  hand  to  both,  and  hailing  them  as  the  com- 
mon family  of  this  Government. 

The  first  resolution  offered  by  the  Committee, 
(I  refer,  of  couse,  to  the  majority  report,)  is  as 
follows : 

Resolved,  That  at  present  there  is  no  adequate 
cause  to  impel  Missouri  to  dissolve  her  connec  - 


108 


tion  with  the  Federal  Union,  but,  on  the  contrary, 
she  will  labor  for  such  an  adjustment  of  existing 
troubles  as  will  secure  the  peace  as  well  as  the 
rights  and  equality  of  all  the  States. 

I  ask,  gentlemen  of  this  Convention,  do  you  ob- 
ject to  that  resolution?  I  ask  gentlemen  who 
came  here  for  the  purpose  of  using  all  honorable 
means  to  preserve  the  Union,  if  they  can  have  any 
objection  to  it?  I  believe  that  I  can  say  that  an 
overwhelming  majority  of  the  members  of  this 
Convention  will  be  found  in  its  favor.  And  I 
may  also  say,  although  my  knowledge  of  the 
people  of  the  State  is  limited,  yet,  judgingfrom  the 
sentiments  of  9,000  to  10,000  legal  voters  whom 
I  have  the  honor  to  represent,  they  will  give 
their  hearty  approbation  to  it.  I  took  the  posi- 
tion before  my  people,  in  making  the  little  can- 
vass that  I  did  make,  that  there  was  no  existing 
cause  at  that  time,  or  any  cause  which  I  could 
see  as  likely  to  arise,  sufficient  to  justify  this 
State  in  dissolving  her  connection  with  the  Gen- 
eral Government.  I  here  to-day  repeat  it,  in  or- 
der to  redeem  my  pledges  to  the  people  before 
whom  I  canvassed.  I  maintain  that  there  is  no 
cause  existing  to-day  that  would  impel  me,  as  a 
citizen  of  Missouri— as  a  citizen  of  the  United 
States — to  dissolve  my  connection  with  my  Gov- 
ernment. I  would,  in  my  judgment,  prove  recre- 
ant to  the  people  that  honored  me  with  a  seat  in 
this  Convention,  were  I  to  occupy  any  other  po- 
sition. I  believe  I  should  prove  recreant  to  the 
mother  who  gave  me  birth,  were  I  to  occupy  any 
other  position.  Sir,  I  assert  it  again,  there  was 
no  existing  canse  for  Missouri  going  out  of  the 
Union  at  the  time  I  made  my  canvass;  and  the 
only  event  that  has  taken  place  since,  that  could 
have  any  weight  in  determining  the  action  of 
Missouri,  is  the  Inaugural  of  the  President.  I 
told  my  people  that,  with  all  the  facts  and  cir- 
cumstances then  existing,  and  with  the  addition- 
al fact  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  inauguration  on  the  4th 
of  March,  there  was  not  sufficient  cause  to  dis- 
solve our  connection  with  the  General  Govern- 
ment. Mr.  Lincoln  has  since  been  inaugurated. 
His  Inaugural  Address  has  been  delivered  and 
received  all  over  the  country,  and  I  still  find  that 
there  is  no  cause  for  Missouri  to  secede.  In  my 
humble  judgment,  that  Iuaugural,  instead  of  be- 
ing a  war  message,  is  a  peace  message;  and,  in 
so  believing,  I  am  willing  to  be  responsible  to  my 
constituents. 

But  we  are  told  that  the  people  of  the  North 
have  brought  about  the  "irrepressible  conflict," 
and  that  it  is  of  a  nature  too  intolerable  for  the 
people  of  the  Southern  States  to  endure.  Gentle- 
men, I  take  this  occasion  to  say — and  my  people 
know  that  what  I  am  saying  is  correct — that  I  en- 
tirely disagree  with  Mr.  Lincoln  or  his  party  in 
regard  to  the  subject  of  slavery.  I  do  not  indorse 
any  of  their  sentiments  on  this  subject.  Most 
emphatically  it  was  not  by  my  consent— it  was 


not  by  my  approbation,  that  Mr.  Lincoln  was 
made  President  of  the  United  States.  On  the 
contrary,  I  have  done  everything  that  an  honor- 
able man  with  my  feeble  power  could  do  to  de- 
feat him.  But,  gentlemen,  I  see  no  cause  why 
this  Convention  should  not  adopt  the  first  reso- 
lution. Much  as  the  South  has  been  wronged  by 
the  Republican  party,  and  great  as  has  been  the 
evil  which  the  ascendancy  of  that  party  has 
brought  upon  our  country,  still  I  see  no  reason 
why  we  should  reject  that  resolution.  The  gen- 
tleman from  Andrew,  if  I  understand  him  right, 
says  that  it  is  a  great  and  tremendous  evil  for  a 
minister  in  the  North  to  preach  the  "irrepressible 
conflict"  from  his  pulpit.  Undoubtedly  it  is.  But 
I  tell  him  it  is  acting  in  bad  faith  towards  the 
people  of  this  Goverment,  and  equally  as  wron£ 
for  a  Southern  minister  to  take  up  the  doctrine 
of  disunion  and  preach  it  from  his  pulpit.  If  it 
is  wrong  for  one  section  of  the  country  to  disre- 
gard the  laws  and  bid  defiance  to  the  Constitu- 
tion, so  it  is  for  another. 

So  much  for  the  first  resolution.  I  now  pro- 
ceed to  the  second  resolution,  which  reads  as  fol- 
lows : 

Resolved,  That  the  people  of  this  State  are  de- 
votedly attached  to  the  institutions  of  our  coun- 
try, and  earnestly  desire  that,  by  a  fair  and  ami- 
cable adjustment,  all  the  causes  of  disagreement 
that  at  present  unfortunately  distract  us  as  a  peo- 
ple, may  be  removed,  to  the  end  that  our  Union 
may  be  preserved  and  perpetuated,  and  peace  and 
harmony  be  restored  between  the  North  and  the 
South. 

Now,  gentlemen,  allow  me  to  ask  you  this 
question.  Is  not  it  the  desire  of  every  member 
on  this  floor  that  all  the  difficulties  which  are 
now  distracting  our  country  should  be  settled  ? 
Is  not  that  the  desire  of  the  delegates  to  this  Con- 
vention? Undoubtedly  it  is.  I  have  no  hesitancy 
in  saying  that  if  any  gentleman  had  taken  a  po- 
sition different  from,  or  antagonistic  to  this — if 
any  gentleman  had  avowed  that  he  was  not  for 
compromise,  that  he  was  not  for  an  amicable  ad- 
justment of  existing  difficulties,  he  could  not 
have  been  elected  to  a  seat  in  this  body.  I  hold 
that  position,  and  I  shall  never  hold  one  that  is  in 
conflict  with  it.  I  deem  it  to  be  in  accordance 
with  the  wishes  of  the  people  of  Missouri.  I 
know  that  Missouri  holds  this  position,  and  I  am 
not  afraid  that  the  voice  of  the  people  will  ever 
say  to  me,  Poster,  you  are  mistaken — you  know 
nothing  about  the  people  of  Missouri. 

Gentlemen,  I  came  here  as  a  compromise  man. 
I  came  here  pledged  before  my  people  that  I 
would  do  all  in  my  power  to  restore  peace  to  our 
now  distracted  but  once  happy  country,  and  I 
am  impelled  by  my  sense  of  duty  to  act  accord- 
ingly. I  will  so  act,  first,  because  it  is  congenial 
to  my  sentiments,  and,  secondly,  because  it  is  the 
position  which  I  took  before  my  constituents. 


109 


And  I  may  be  permitted  to  remark,  that  how- 
ever I  may  be  wanting  in  ability  to  meet  their 
expectations  on  this  floor,  yet  there  is  one  thing 
in  which  I  never  will  be  found  wanting,  and  that 
is,  integrity  to  carry  out  the  position  which  I 
took  before  them. 

I  repeat  it,  Mr.  President,  is  it  possible  that 
there  is  a  member  in  this  body  who  is  not  willing 
to  use  all  the  power  at  his  command  for  the  pur- 
pose of  restoring  peace  to  the  country?    I  appre- 
hend there  is  no  one.    I  apprehend  that  it  is  the 
desire  of  every  member  that  peace  should  be  re- 
stored.   I  beiieve  there  is  no  member  of  this 
Convention  but  who  is  disposed  to  maintain  the 
Union  of  these  States  and  to  maintain  his  Con- 
stitutional rights  as  a  citizen  in  the  great  family 
of  States.    If  this  is  not  the  desire  of  this  Con- 
vention, I  confess  that  I  have  been  unable  to  dis- 
cover what  its  complexion  is.    And  if,  contrary 
to  my  expectation,  this    should   not   prove  to 
be    its    complexion,  yet    I  feel    sure    that    it 
is   the    complexion    of   the    people    whom    I 
represent  in  part  to-day.    Keeping  a  central  posi- 
tion in  the  West  as  we  do,  it  becomes  our  duty, 
if  there  are  causes  of  complaint,  to  examine  them 
and  speak  of  them  in  a  mild  and  conciliatory 
manner.    Such  is  the    nature  of  the  American 
citizen,  that  you  cannot  even  drive  him  to  do 
that  which  he  wants  to  do,  much  less  drive  him 
to  do  that  which  he  does  not  want  to  do.    It,  will 
not  do  for  us,  therefore,  to   discriminate  against 
one  section  or  another — it  will  not  do  for  us  to 
heap  epithets,  either  upon  the  people  of  the  North 
or  upon  the  people  of  the  South ;  but  we  must 
proceed  in  the  calm,  deliberative  and  conciliatory 
manner,  speaking  to  the  men  of  the  North  and 
the    men  of  the    South    as  our  brothers.    We 
should  indeed  be  compromise  men.    Sir,  I  desire 
that  every  act  of  mine,  that  every  word  of  mine, 
and  every  declaration  of    mine,   shall  be  that 
while  we  can  extend  our  left  hand  to  the  people 
of  the  North,  we  can  extend  our  right  hand  to 
the  people  of  the  South,  talking  to  them  as  one 
common  family — talking  to  them  as  I  would  to 
brothers  of  the  flesh,  who  I  believed  had  done 
me  wrong,  but  whom  I  would  entreat  to  come 
back  and  do  me  right.    Such  I  desire  to  be  my 
action,  and  such  I  desire  to  be  the  action  of  this 
Convention. 

Mr.  President,  I  will  now  proceed  to  read  the 
third  resolution: 

Resolved,  That  the  people  of  this  State  deem 
the  amendments  to  the  Constitution  of  the  United 
States,  proposed  by  the  Hon.  John  J.  Crittenden, 
of  Kentucky,  with  the  extension  of  the  same  to 
the  territory  hereafter  to  be  acquired  by  treaty  or 
otherwise,  a  basis  of  adjustment  which  will  suc- 
cessfully remove  the  causes  of  difference  forever 
from  the  arena  of  national  politics. 


Regarding  this  resolution,   I   would    ask  you, 
gentlemen  of  the  Convention,  whether  it  is  not 
the  desire  of  the  people  you  represent  to  take  this 
slavery  question  out  of  the  hands    of  politicians 
and  political  demagogues.    So  far  as  I  am  con- 
cerned, I  frankly  confess  that,  if  I  could,  by  any 
means  honorable  to  an  American    citizen,  take 
that  question  out  of  the  power  of  legislation ;  if 
I  could  take  it  out  of  the  power  of  politicians  and 
political  demagogues,  I  would  conceive  it  to  be 
the  proudest  act  of  my  life.    If  I  have  one  desire 
above  another,  in  connection  with    the  political 
questions  of  the  day,  it  is  that  we    could  make 
a  fair  adjustment  of  this    slavery  question,  and 
take  it  out  of  the  arena  of  politics.    Sir,  it  is  this 
question    which     has    distracted    and    divided 
my  country,  and  set  one  section  in  hostile  array 
against  another.    It  is  through  it  that  men  have 
been  lifted  into   power  who  were  unworthy  of 
the  people  that  placed  them  there.    There  will 
always  be  a  difference  of  opinion  in  regard  to  it. 
The  people  of  the  North,  who  were  reared  under 
Northern  institutions,   are  taught  to  believe  that 
slavery  is  a  curse — that  it  is  an  evil — and  hence 
they    arc    from     their    youth     up    prejudiced 
against  it.    On  the  other  hand,  the  people  of  the 
South,  who  were  raised  under    Southern  institu- 
tions, look  upon  it  as  right  and  proper,  and 
are  apt  to  be  prejudiced  in  its  favor.    Hence, 
looking     at     slavery     in    an      abstract    point 
of    view,  it  cannot  seem    strange    that  there 
should    be    difference    of    opinion     about    it. 
Agitation,    then,    becomes    dangerous,    and    is 
calculated  to  array  the  adherents  of  one  opinion 
against  the  adherents  of  another.    We  have  all 
seen  the  devastating  effects  of  the  slavery  agita- 
tion.   We  are  even  now  suffering  from  it,  and 
behold  the  humiliating  spectacle  of  a  once  happy 
country,  distracted  and  drive  to  the   verge  of 
ruin  on  account  of  it.    Then,  what  are  we  to  do  ? 
Is  it  not  urgent  that  we  should  adopt  some  plan 
by  which  to  take  it  out  of  the  power  of  legis- 
lation ?    Do  we  not  all  see  that,  so  long  as  it  re- 
mains an  open  question,  the  people  of  the  North 
contending  that  Congress  possesses  the  power 
under  the  Constitution  to  prohibit  the  introduc- 
tion of  slavery  into   the   Territories,    and  the 
people  of  the  South  contending  that  the  Territo- 
ries are  common  property,  will  be  arrayed  against 
each  other,  and  there  will  be  unceasing  strife 
and  contention?    It  is  therefore  well  that  this 
resolution  may  compromise  by  amendments  to 
the  Constitution,  the  effect  of  which  will  be  to 
quiet  all  agitation  on  the  subject  of  slavery  for- 
ever.   I  have  taken  a  position  before  the  people 
in  my  district,  that  I  would  accept  as  the  basis 
of  compromise  what  is  known  as  the  Crittenden 
amendment,  or  one  of  similar  import ;  and  I  state 
before  you  to-day,  in  clear  and  unmistakable  lan- 
guage, that  I  am  willing  to  take  any  compromise 
that  will  restore  peace  and  harmony  between  the 


110 


North  and  the  South.  In  saying  so,  I  am  but 
uttering  the  sentiments  of  the  people  who  sent 
me  here. 

I  proceed  to  the  next  resolution : 

Resolved,  That  the  people  of  Missouri  believe 
the  peace  and  quiet  of  the  country  will  be  pro- 
moted by  a  Convention  to  propose  amendments 
to  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States,  and  this 
Convention  therefore  urges  the  Legislature  of  this 
State  to  take  the  proper  steps  for  calling  such  a 
Convention  in  pursuance  of  the  fifth  article  of 
the  Constitution,  and  for  providing  by  law  for  an 
election  of  one  delegate  to  such  Convention  from 
each  electoral  district  in  this  State. 

I  am  aware,  Mr.  President,  that  in  regard  to 
the  Convention  recommended  to  be  held  by  this 
body,  there  is  a  difference  of  opinion — some  be- 
lieving that  it  will  be  preferable  to  hold  a  Con- 
vention of  all  the  States,  and  others  thinking  it 
best  to  hold  a  Convention  of  the  Border  States 
merely.  I  will  say  that,  so  far  as  I  am  concerned, 
I  am  in  favor  of  a  Convention  of  all  the  States. 
My  reason  for  taking  this  position  is,  that  such 
a  Convention  will  be  in  perfect  harmony 
and  keeping  with  the  Constitution  of  the 
United  States.  I  may  also  state  that  this  is 
the  position  which  I  have  taken  before  my  con- 
stituents. As  they  have  elected  me  on  that  posi- 
tion, I  consider  myself  bound  to  maintain  it  on 
this  floor.  I  consider  that  I  have  been  instructed 
to  that  effect.  The  assembling  of  a  National 
Convention,  according  to  my  understanding,  is 
the  constitutional  mode  of  introducing  amend- 
ments to  the  Constitution.  Being  a  Constitution- 
loving  man,  and  a  law-abiding  citizen,  I  desire  no 
act  of  mine  to  come  in  conflict  with  that  sacred 
instrument. 

I  will  now  read  the  fifth  resolution : 

5.  Resolved,  That,  in  the  opinion  of  this  Con- 
vention, the  employment  of  military  force  by  the 
Federal  Government  to  coerce  the  submission  of 
the  seceding  States,  or  the  employment  of  mili- 
tary force  by  the  seceding  States  to  assail  the 
Government  of  the  United  States,  will  inevitably 
plunge  this  country  into  civil  war,  and  thereby 
entirely  extinguish  all  hope  of  an  amicable'settle- 
ment  of  the  fearful  issues  now  pending  before 
the  country.  We  therefore  earnestly  entreat  as  well 
the  Federal  Government  as  the  seceding  States  to 
withhold  and  stay  the  arm  of  military  power,  and 
on  no  pretense  whatever  bring  upon  the  nation 
the  horrors  of  civil  war. 

Much  has  been  said  in  this  Convention  about 
this  resolution,  I  apprehend,  Mr.  President,  that 
there  is  no  gentleman  upon  this  floor  that  is 
pledged  in  stronger  terms  against  the  doctrine  of 
coercion  than  myself.  No  proposition  that  could 
be  introduced  here  could  receive  my  support  if  it 
looked  or  even  squinted  toward  coercion.  It  is 
evident  to  every  reflecting  mind  that  we  have  to 
take  things  as  they  exist,  and  not  as  we  desire 


them  to  be;  and  at  this  particular  juncture,  sym- 
pathizing as  I  do  with  all  quarters  of  the  country, 
and  particularly  with  the  people  of  the  South,  I 
may  say  that  American  blood  becomes  to  me  a 
paramount  question,  and  I  will  do  all  in  my  pow- 
er to  prevent  it  from  being  shed.  I  could  not, 
therefore,  nor  would  I  ever,  support  any  proposi- 
tion that  even  squinted  toward  coercion.  The 
only  question  arising  in  reference  to  the  fifth  res- 
olution, is,  whether  its  language  is  emphatic 
enough  to  adequately  express  our  sentiment,  and 
I  will  say  that,  in  my  opinion,  it  is.  I  am  willing 
to  adopt  that  resolution  just  as  it  is.  Whether 
my  people  will  indorse  my  course  in  this  respect 
or  not,  is  a  matter  about  which  I  am  but  little  con- 
cerned. I  intend  to  discharge  my  duty  towards 
them,  and  I  leave  them  to  be  the  judges  whether 
I  shall  do  so  or  not.  I  think  it  essential  that,  as  a 
body,  we  should  speak  in  a  mild  and  conciliatory 
manner,  both  to  the  people  of  the  North  and 
of  the  South  and  to  the  General  Government. 
Gentlemen,  I  cannot  for  a  moment  entertain  the 
notion  to  raise  my  arm  against  my  Government. 
No !  I  would  rather  that  this  arm  of  mine  should 
perish — yea,  that  this  stammering  tongue  of 
mine  should  cleave  to  the  roof  of  my  mouth, 
than  that  I  should  raise  my  arm  against  my  Gov- 
ernment.   I  will  never  do  it. 

That  brings  me  to  consider  the  amendment 
which  was  offered  to  this  resolution  by  my  friend 
from  Clay.  My  kindly  feelings  toward  that  gen- 
tleman, and  my  regard  for  his  upright  endeavor, 
would  induce  me  to  support  almost  any  proposi- 
tion that  he  could  eonscieniiously  introduce  and 
support.  Acknowledging  as  I  do  that,  in  my 
judgment,  he  is  a  better  Union  man  than  I  am — 
not  that  he  is  more  devoted  to  the  Union, 
or  that  he  has  any  stronger  attachment 
for  it,  .for  I  do  not  believe  that  the  man 
lives  who  can  have  a  stronger  attachment  for  his 
government  than  I  have ;  but  that  he  has  the 
ability  to  impress  his  views  upon  the  people  and 
convince  them  that  he  is  right,  better  than  I  can. 
As  I  am  just  looking  that  way  I  happen  to  see, 
with  great  pleasure,  that  one  of  my  constituents 
is  just  now  sitting  by  one  of  my  colleagues,  who, 
for  reasons  I  suppose  satisfactory  to  himself,  took 
great  pleasure  in  trying  to  defeat  me.  [Laughter.] 
Allow  me  to  say  that  I  ran  under  the  charge  of 
Black  Republicanism — under  the  charge  of  being 
a  submissionist.  Well,  now  I  don't  care,  gentle- 
men, anything  about  these  charges.  As  you  per- 
ceive, I  am  one  of  those  remarkably  good-humor- 
ed men  who  can  afford  to  be  misrepresented,  and 
I  don't  care,  so  far  as  I  am  personally  or 
politically  concerned,  what  charges  my  adversa- 
ries have  been  disseminating  against  me.  But, 
sir,  I  ask  this  Convention  not  to  adopt  this 
amendment,  for  the  reasen  that  I  believe  that  if 
it  is  adopted  it  will  force  this  Convention  to  one 
of  two  conclusions.    What  are  they  ?    First,  that 


Ill 


the  amendment  is  one  of  the  inroads  of  seces- 
sionism.  The  other  is,  that  it  forces  Missouri, 
under  any  and  all  contingent  circumstances,  to 
fold  up  her  arms  in  perfect  submission  to  any- 
thing and  everything.  Why,  sir,  it  reminds  me 
of  the  good  old  Methodist  lady  who  would  go 
around  advocating  the  doctrine  that  if  you  are 
smitten  on  one  cheek  you  must  turn  the  other  in 
perfect  submission  and  be  smitten  on  that  also. 
This  amendment  pledges  the  people  of  Mis- 
souri, now  and  for  all  time  to  come,  that  under 
no  circumstances  will  we  raise  our  ami  against  a 
seceding  State  or  against  our  present  Government. 
"Why,  gentlemen,  my  opponents  used  to  tell 
me  the  reason  Avhy  they  wanted  a  seat  in  this 
Convention  was  to  place  Missouri  right  upon  the 
record,  I  desire  to  place  Missouri  right  upon  the 
record,  and  I  desire  that  the  hands  of  Missouri 
and  the  hands  of  her  citizens  shall  not  be  tied 
up  in  any  such  manner  as  this.  I  believe,  sir, 
that  the  people  of  Missouri  are  capable  of  meet- 
ing any  and  all  emergencies ;  but  while  we  are 
disposed  not  even  to  countenance  secession,  dis- 
union or  coercion,  yet,  sir,  I  hold  it  to  be  my 
duty,  and  the  duty  of  this  Convention,  not  to  tie 
the  hands  of  Missouri.  You  know  not  what 
emergency  may  arise.  You  know  not 
what  may  take  place  in  a  year  or  a 
month.  I  therefore  ask  you  not  to  tie 
the  hands  of  Missouri  in  all  time  to  come.  I 
sincerely  hope  that  this  Convention  will  not  place 
the  people  of  Missoud  in  the  condition  in  which 
the  Legislature  of  the  State  desired  to  place  this 
Convention,  namely :  putting  them  in  a  church 
not  made  with  hands,  that  will  endure  forever. — 
I  desire  the  people  of  Missouri  to  be  placed  in  no 
such  condition,  and  I  understand  some  of  the 
gentlemen  in  the  Legislature  were  not  very  par- 
ticular whether  they  placed  us  in  a  church  re- 
maining forever,  or  whether  they  placed  us  in 
the  penitentiary  at  the  capital  of  Missouri.— 
[Laughter.]  In  the  language  of  the  gentlemen 
who  differ  with  me  on  this  floor,  I  say  to  you, 
"sufficient  for  the  day  is  the  evil  thereof."  Al- 
low me  to  remark,  that  I  am  forced  to  the  con- 
clusion that  if  I  was  to  indorse  that  amendment, 
it  would  be  proper  to  brand  me  with  being  a 
cheerful  submissionist,  which  charge  I  did  not 
only  deny  upon  the  stump,  but  I  now  deny  it  as 
being  a  gross  insult  to  a  gentleman  of  an  angry 
temper;  but  as  I  am  happily  one  of  those  very 
mild  men,  Mr.  President,  I  consider  it  no  insult. 
Let  me  now  say  a  few  words  to  this  Border 
State  proposition.  I  came  here,  or  rather  to  Jef- 
fe  rson  City,  having  had  an  oath  resting  upon  me 
for  years  to  support  the  Constitution  of  the  Unit- 
ed States.  That  oath  had  been  upon  me  for 
years,  by  and  with  my  own  consent,  and  to  me 
it  mattered  not  whether  it  should  be  renewed  or 
not;  for  as  long  as  that  oath  rests  upon  me,  I  ex- 
pect to  maintain  it  and  act  in  accordance  with  it. 


I  care  nothing  about  that  renewal.  But,  sir,  as 
men  supporting  the  Constitution  of  the  United 
States,  sworn  as  we  are  to  support  it,  let  me  ask 
you  if  the  inroad  that  is  attempted  here  to  be 
i  made  by  this  amendment  is  not  the  very  first 
step  towards  getting  outside  of  the  Constitution— 
outside  of  the  authority  of  law?  Do  those  gen- 
tlemen, after  holding  a  Border  State  Convention, 
propose  in  any  legal  manner  to  have  it  ratified? 
No,  not  at  all.  What,  then,  do  they  propose? 
Why,  they  say  they  will  present  an  ultimatum  to 
the  people  of  the  North.  What  next?  I  will  ask 
some  of  these  gentlemen.  There  you  find  a  little 
squirming. 

The  Chair.  The  gentleman  is  not  permitted 
to  argue  the  minority  report. 

Mr.  Foster.  I  hope  the  President  will  excuse 
me.  Not  being  used  to  deliberative  assemblies, 
and  not  being  versed  in  parliamentary  rules,  I 
am  liable  to  transgress.  I  will  readily  suffer  a 
correction  by  your  Honor. 

Gentlemen,  I  will  not  say  anything  about  that 
minority  report;  but  I  will  give  you  the  word  of 
warning  as  Union  men,  determined  as  I  believe 
you  are  to  support  the  Constitution  of  the  United 
States,  and  to  discharge  your  duties  toward  the 
people  of  Missouri,  not  to  allow  any  inroad  to  be 
made  either  upon  the  Constitution  of  your  coun- 
try or  the  laws  enacted  in  accordance  therewith. 
I  guard  you  against  it,  because  it  is  one  of  the  in- 
roads of  secession.  Its  main  object  is  to  get  you 
outside  of  the  Constitution,  and  then  they  have 
got  what  they  call  the  "inside  track"  of  you. 

In  regard  to  this  doctrine  of  coercion  I  want  to 
say,  as  I  said  before  my  people,  that  the  people 
of  the  North — and  when  I  speak  of  the  people  of 
the  North  I  mean  the  majority— have  done  us  in- 
justice and  wrong.  They  have,  by  their  egisla- 
tive  enactments,  passed  what  is  known  in  many 
Northern  States  as  the  personal  liberty  bills.  They 
have  in  this  regard  acted  in  bad  faith  toward  the 
Government.  They  have  acted  in  bad  faith  to- 
ward the  people  of  the  South;  and  in  the  lan- 
guage of  those  resolutions,  I  ask  them  as  American 
citizens,  as  my  Northern  brethren,  not  to  persist 
in  such  a  course.  I  ask  them  to  repeal  those  ob- 
noxious laws,  although  I  do  not  regard  them 
worth  the  blank  paper  upon  which  they  were  writ- 
ten. I  understand  upon  this  question  the  Consti- 
tution of  the  United  States  and  the  laws  enacted 
by  Congress,  are  the  supreme  law  of  the  land, 
any  laws  passed  by  the  State  to  the  contrary  not- 
withstanding. But  I  ask  those  States  to  retract 
them,  and  do  us  right.  I  beseech  them— although 
gentlemen  do  not  like  to  see  a  man  say  that  he 
comes  in  the  attitude  of  "submission;"  yet  if  it 
would  do  any  good,  and  restore  peace  to  my 
country,  I  could  fall  down  on  my  knees  to  the 
people  of  the  North  and  ask  them  to  repeal  those 
laws.  I  would  in  the  same  spirit  fall  on  my 
knees  to  the  people  of  the  South,  and  ask  them 


112 


to  abstain  from  their  rash  acts,  so  that  this  coun- 
try might  again  be  united,  and  peace  be  estab- 
lished on  a  permanent  basis. 

While  I  say  to  the  people  of  the  North  that 
they  have  done  us  injustice,  I  say  to  our  erring 
sisters  of  the  South,  that  they,  too,  have  done  us 
wrong.  I  think  their  acts  have  been  precipitate — 
not  warranted  by  law,  not  warranted  by  reserved 
rights ;  that  they  have,  as  American  citizens,  un- 
dertaken to  seek  redress  for  the  grievances  of 
which  they  complain  in  a  manner  not  at  all  war- 
ranted. They  have  not  sought  redress  by  ta- 
king a  legal  position,  nor  by  throwing  them- 
selves back  upon  their  inherent  right  of  revolu- 
tion. They  have  not  done  so.  Sir,  I  am  one  of 
those  men  that  believe,  that,  as  sure  as  the  sun 
rises  in  the  east  and  sets  in  the  west,  whenever 
the  Government  fails  to  accomplish  the  ends  for 
which  it  was  created,  the  right  of  revolution  is 
clear.  And  I  tell  you,  sir,  to-day,  that,  should 
that  day  ever  arise,  I  will  be  among  the  first  who 
will  act  upon  that  right.  But,  sir,  I  can  see 
nothing  in  the  state  of  things  now  existing — I 
can  see  nothing  that  is  likely  to  occur — which 
will  induce  me  to  believe  that  it  will  become  ne- 
cessary for  the  people  of  Missouri  to  resort  to  the 
right  of  revolution. 

I  told  my  people  when  making  the  canvass,  that 
should  circumstances  arise  that  would  justify 
revolution,  I  should  be  heartily  in  favor  of  it.  I 
have  been  asked,  how  long  before  such  a  state  of 
things  will  come  to  pass.  I  have  told  them,  I 
answer  not  by  weeks,  not  by  months,  not  by 
years,  but  by  circumstances ;  and  that  when  we 
should  arrive  at  a  given  state  of  things  in  which 
I  believed  that  the  right  of  revolution  was  the 
only  means  of  redress,  I  should  so  declare  it. 
Therefore,  gentlemen,  I  ask  you  not  to  tie  the 
hands  of  Missouri.  We  know  not,  nor  can  we 
tell  what  we  may  have  to  encounter  in  that  fu- 
ture. 

Sir,  I  desire  to  say  that  if  there  is  any  one  de- 
sire which  I  have  before  any  other  in  regard  to 
the  demon  of  Northern  Abolitionism  and  fanati- 
cism, or  this  fell  demon  of  the  South,  Secession, 
it  is  this :  that  if  I  could  bring  them  within  my 
grasp,  I  would  bury  them  both  in  the  bowels  of 
the  earth,  or  beneath  the  waters  of  the  sea,  so 
that  no  American  citizen  shonld  hear  of  them 
again.  I  believe  that  peace  could  then  be  surely 
restored  in  my  country.  Gentlemen  may  con- 
sider these  expressions  are  rather  harsh,  but,  sir, 
as  an  American  citizen — as  a  man  desirous  to 
preserve  this  government,  I  would  like  to  get  rid 
of  all  these  wicked  spirits  that  infest  my  country. 

Then,  gentlemen,  in  conclusion,  permit  me  to 
remark,  that  my  only  desire  is  to  assist  in  main- 
taining our  rights  and  preserving  this  Union.  If 
I  can  be  any  way  instrumental  in  preserving  the 
Union  of  these  States  upon  terms  of  equality,  and 
restoring  peace  to  this  Government,  it  will  be- 


stow upon  me  all  the  glory  I  want.  I  ask  no 
more — I  ask  no  higher  laurels — I  ask  no  higher 
calling  by  any  people,  or  position  in  the  gift  of 
any  people,  than  to  be  instrumental  in  restoring 
peace  to  our  now  distracted  and  once  happy 
country.  If  I  could  see  quiet  reign  once  more,  I 
would  say  all  is  well ;  and  I  ask  Missouri  to  take 
a  position  as  mediator,  situated  as  she  is  in  the 
central  position  of  the  West,  to  stretch  out  her 
arms  to  the  people  of  the  North  and  the  South, 
and  bid  them  stand  still  and  let  the  Union  be 
saved. 

I  hope  this  Convention  will  adopt  the  majority 
report  just  as  it  has  come  from  the  committee. 
And  I  will  take  this  occasion  to  say,  lest  a  wrong 
impression  should  go  out,  that  I  have  perused 
the  report  very  calmly  and  carefully,  and  though 
there  are  some  things  which  I  should  desire  to  be 
a  little  different,  yet  as  I  came  here  as  a  compro- 
mise man,  not  intent  on  enforcing  strictly  my 
own  opinions,  but  in  common  to  deliberate  with 
the  members  of  this  Convention,  I  believe  that 
it  is  right  in  the  main,  and  that  it  ought  to  be 
adopted.  I  am  determined  to  support  that  report 
at  all  hazards.  Allow  me  to  remark,  sir,  that  if 
I  had  been  called  upon  to  produce  such  a  docu- 
ment, I  have  some  doubt  as  to  whether  it  would 
have  met  my  approval  as  well  as  does  this  report. 
Taking  it  as  a  whole,  and  not  stopping  at  par- 
ticulars, I  do  not  believe  the  document  could 
have  been  excelled. 

I  know  it  would  have  been  somewhat  different 
had  I  been  called  upon  to  draw  it  up.  I  would 
rather  see  some  things  in  it  different,  and  I  will 
tell  you  why.  I  was  bom  of  Southern  parents 
and  raised  under  Southern  institutions.  I  am 
imbued  with  Southern  prejudice.  My  prejudices 
and  my  sympathies  are  altogether  with  the  South. 
I  would  then  most  likely  have  given  that  report  a 
more  Southern  coloring.  Yet  I  never  intend  that 
my  prejudices  should  lead  me  astray.  I  want  to 
discharge  my  duty  towards  my  country,  and  then 
I  am  satisfied. 

Gentlemen,  I  shall  bring  my  remarks  to  a  close. 
I  say  to  you,  in  conclusion,  that  I  intend  to  stand 
by  the  Union  of  these  States  as  long  as  there  is 
any  hope  to  be  cherished  for  the  preservation  of 
Missouri  in  the  Union — and  when  that  dark  cloud 
shall  appear  which  will  enshroud  in  everlasting 
gloemthe  glorious  prospects  of  my  country,  then, 
and  not  until  then,  will  I  turn  for  another  republic. 
Yes,  gentlemen,  I  say  that  all  hope  must  be  ex- 
tinguished before  I  will  abandon  my  country— 
before  I  will  be  in  favor  of  forming  a 
new  confederation.  My  object,  my  aim, 
my  desire  will  be  to  reclaim  our  erring  sisters  of 
the  South  and  bring  them  back  into  the  family 
of  States,  to  stand  upon  the  same  Constitution 
with  us — to  share  our  rights  and  enjoy  the  same 
privileges  with  us  as  they  have  done  heretofore. 
I  tell  you,  you  may  call  me  a  submissionist  if  you 


113 


please,  I  care  nothing  about  it;  but  I  never 
will  submit  to  a  wrong.  I  stand  upon  con- 
stitutional ground.  I  expect  to  maintain 
it,  and  I  expect  to  take  nothing,  either  in 
compromise  or  otherwise,  when  I  am  forced  to 
seek  my  right  at  the  point  of  the  bayonet.  Not 
that  I  would  have  you  believe,  gentlemen  of  the 
Convention,  that  I  am  a  brave  man,  now,  [laugh- 
ter]—I  don't  want  you  to  get  any  such  idea  into 
your  heads;  but  it  is  a  principle  that  I  consider 
correct.  I  know,  Mr.  President,  that  you  are  a 
loyal  citizen,  and  that  if  the  flag  of  our  country 
is  assailed,  even  though  your  hair  be  whitened 
with  age,  and  the  elasticity  of  youthful  feeling 
gone,  yet  I  beh"eve  in  my  soul  you  would  be 
willing  to  gird  on  your  sabre  to-day  and  march 
in  defense  of  your  country.  So  I  believe  tnat 
you  would,  gentlemen  of  the  Convention.  As 
for  my  humble  self,  I  have  every  reason  to  be- 
lieve that  my  grandfather  served  in  the 
Revolutionary  war  six  years  and  six  months. 
I  have  every  reason  to  believe  that  my 
own  father  served  in  the  war  of  1812,  twelve 
months ;  and  there  is  one  thing  I  did — that  is, 
that  I  had  the  honor  of  commanding  a  com- 
pany in  the  Mexican  war  in  defense  of  that  flag; 
and  if  there  is  any  one  desire  which  I  have 
above  any  other  desire,  it  is  this,  that  I  may  have 
the  good  fortune  to  raise  one  child  who,  when 
the  flag  of  my  country  is  assailed,  may  gird  on 
the  sabre  or  shoulder  his  musket,  and  march  in 
defense  of  the  flag  of  his  country,  there  to  in- 
scribe upon  that  banner  the  loyalty  of  the  Foster 
family  to  this  Government. 

Mr.  Givens.  Mr.  President,  I  am  in  favor  of 
the  amendment  of  the  gentlemen  from  Clay,  but 
for  reasons  different  from  many  gentlemen  in  this 
Convention.  Coercion  is  wrong  in  itself,  in  my 
view,  beeause  I  think  the  seceding  States  had  a 
right  to  separate  themselves  from  this  Union. 
Coercion  is  wrong,  also,  because  it  would  destroy 
all  hope  of  proper  adjustment.  But  as  to  the  right 
of  a  State  of  this  Union  to  dissolve  its  political 
connection  with  the  Federal  Government,  the 
Convention  of  1787,  which  formed  the  present 
Constitution,  expressly  denied  to  the  General 
Government  the  power  of  coercion  by  military 
force,  of  any  of  the  States  under  any  circum- 
stances, whatever.  Gentlemen  concede  this ;  still 
they  say  there  is  no  express  power  in  the  Consti- 
tution, of  secession.  I  have  only  to  say  that  if 
there  was  no  power  of  a  State  to  separate  from 
the  Union,  why  ask  that  the  Constitution 
should  contain  a  provision  for  coercion? 
The  very  statement  of  the  question  im- 
plies the  right  of  separation.  Gentlemen 
concede  the  great  inherent  right  of  every  State, 
of  every  independent  political  organization,  to 
judge  for  itself  as  to  its  own  political  destiny:  the 
inalienable  right  of  self-government,  which  ex- 
isted before  the  formation  of  human  constitu- 


tions, and  of  human  laws,  the  great  principle 
which  underlies  all  republican  institutions.  If 
the  seceding  States  have  but  exercised  that 
right,  which  never  was  yielded  in  the  formation 
of  the  Constitution,  can  it  be  said  that  they  have 
acted  in  violation  of  that  instrument.  But,  Mr. 
President,  in  my  judgment  it  matters  but  little 
whether  the  States  have  withdrawn  from  this 
Union  under  a  constitutional  or  revolutionary 
right :  we  have  to  deal  with  the  great  fact  that 
seven  States  have  actually  withdrawn  from  the 
Union,  and  have  formed  an  independent  repub- 
lic, and  are  now  performing  all  the  ordinary 
functions  pertaining  to  independent  govern- 
ments. Does  it  matter,  so  far  as  adjustment  is 
concerned,  whether  the  separation  took  place 
under  the  one  right,  or  the  other.  No  man 
more  deeply  deplores  this  state  of  things 
than  I  do;  no  one  desires  a  reunion  upon 
principles  just  and  proper,  more  than  I  do;  but 
Mr.  President  we  have  been  told  that  the  causes 
which  impelled  the  separation  of  these  States,  are 
more  imaginary  than  real.  Is  that  true,  sir.  I 
imagine  that  the  cause  of  separation  is  deeper 
than  many  gentlemen  suppose.  It  may  not  as  yet 
have  resulted  in  any  great  injury  to  the  seceding 
States.  What  great  injury  had  our  fathers  sus- 
tained in  the  imposition  of  a  few  pence  duty  upon 
tea  imported  into  the  colonies?  It  was  not  the  mere 
loss  then  suffered  which  impelled  the  colonies  to 
take  the  step  they  did.  Ah,  no  sir,  it  was  a  mo- 
tive much  higher,  it  was  a  resistance  to  a  right 
asserted  by  the  British  throne,  that  Parliament 
had  the  right  to  tax  the  colonies,  when  they  had 
no  representation  in  that  Parliament;  but  it  is 
said,  sir,  that  the  causes  which  have  separated 
the  seceding  States,  are  imaginary.  I  will  not 
undertake  to  enumerate  the  causes ;  they  are  set 
forth  in  the  minority  report  of  the  Committee 
on  Federal  Relations,  with  a  force  and  truth  to 
my  mind  conclusive.  The  seceding  States  have 
acted  upon  the  high  principle  of  resistance  to 
violations  of  the  Constitution  by  the  North,  with. 
out  regard  to  the  actual  injury  which  may  have 
resulted  from  such  violations,  but  I  do  not  be" 
lieve,  sir,  that  the  injuries  are  merely  imaginary. 
The  fugitive  slave  law,  enacted  in  pursuance  of 
provisions  of  the  Constitution,  has  been  deliber- 
ately set  at  naught  by  the  people  of  the  North;  it 
is  to-day  worse  than  no  law;  it  but  lures  him 
into  the  non-slaveholding  States  in  pursuit  of 
his  property,  which  in  ninety-nine  cases  out  of  a 
hundred,  is  utterly  fruitless— but  that  is  not  all, 
he  is  cast  in  prison,  under  the  provisions  of  their 
personal  liberty  laws :  but  all  this  is  merely  imagr 
inary,  in  the  estimation  of  many  gentleman  on, 
this  floor.  But  Mr.  President,  I  am  no  advocate  of 
war.  Ah,  no  sir,  far  from  it.  It  is  a  fearful  thing 
to  break  up  a  Government  like  this.  I  shud- 
der when  I  look  at  the  dark  picture 
of  blood,   presented  in  internecine  strife.  In  view 

8 


114 


of  such  a  picture,  and  to  arrest  its  horrors,   shall 
we  surrender  right,  submit  to  degradation  and 
dishonor?    No  sir,  no.  I  am  asked  if  I  am  not  fa- 
vorable to  compromise  ?    I  answer  emphatically, 
yea,  hut  upon  terms  just  to  the  South — upon  the  ! 
basis  of  the  Crittenden  propositions— of  amend-  j 
ments  to  the  Constitution  of  the  United   States,  i 
Sir,  I  would  not  demand  such  amendments  in  the 
language  of  entreaty,  but  in  the  name  of  justice —  J 
in  the  name  of  equality  to  all  the  States  of  this  \ 
Union.    I  cannot   agree   with   my   friend  from  : 
Adair,   (for  whom  I  have  the  highest  regard,)  ] 
that  we  should  entreat  and  pray  the  men  of  the  '■■ 
North    to   repeal   their  personal    liberty  bills. 
I      would     demand      their      repeal     in     the  \ 
name     of    the    Constitution     of    my  country. 
Birt,     sir,    what  is    to    be  the  effect  of  reject- 
ing the    amendment    of    the    gentleman  from  | 
Clay.    The  impression  will  go  ab  oad  that  Mis-  j 
souri  is  ready  to  aid  the  General  Government 
in    coercing   the   seceding     States     back   into  I 
this  Union,  whether  such  an  attempt  shall  be  by  j 
an  open  war  or  under  the  paltry  and  miserable  pre-  j 
tence  of  executing  the  laws.     If  gentlemen  are  j 
opposed  to  coercion,  why  not  say  so  in  emphatic  l 
terms  ?    How  many  members  on  this  floor  were 
originally  from  some  of  the  seceding  States  ?  How 
many  from  Virginia  and  Kentucky,  and  other  | 
slave  States,  which,  in  all  probability,  will  go 
with  the  seceding  States?    We  present  them  the 
sad  spectacle— when  called  upon  by  the  General 
Government  to   aid   in   coercing   the   seceding 
States— of  presenting  the  dagger  to  the  bosom  of 
our  own  brothers  of  the  South,  a  picture  which  I 
pray  may  be  forever  veiled  from  my  sight.  These 
are  the  reasons,  sir,  why  I  am  in  favor  of  this 
amendment.    All  history  teaches  us  the  dangers 
of  the  military  overrunning  and  ultimately  des- 
troying the  civil  power.    I  am  unwilling  to  place 
in  the  power  of  the  President  of  the  United  States 
a  military  force  to  coerce  the  seceding  States,  for 
the  reason  that  it  is  wrong  in  itself,  and  for  the 
reason  that  it  blots  out  all  hope  of  proper  ad- 
justment.   Sir,  I  am  done. 

Mr.  Broadhead.  I  feel  it  due  to  myself  as 
well  as  to  the  constituency  which  I  represent  and 
the  country  at  large,  for  whose  interest  we  are 
here  assembled  to-day,  to  say  something  upon  the 
questions  which  are  now  before  this  body;  and,  in 
doing  so,  I  propose  to  speak  as  nearly  as  practi- 
cable to  the  merits  of  the  question  before  us.  I  take 
occasion  to  say  that  I  should  not  have  opened  my 
mouth  upon  this  amendment  which  is  now  be- 
fore this  body  for  its  consideration,  but  for  some 
strange  doctrines  that  I  have  heard  advanced  in 
regard  to  the  subject  of  our  General  Government 
and  our  common  Constitution.  When  we  or- 
ganized this  body,  we  swore  to  support  that  Con- 
stitution—we are  acting  as  yet  under  the  sanction 
of  that  instrument.  Missouri  is  yet  in  the  Union. 
Her  citizens  are  yet  bound  by  the  obligations  of 


that  instrument,  and  we  propose  to  do  nothing 
(at  least  I  am  one  who  expects  to  act  with  those 
who  propose  to  do  nothing)  which  may  change 
the  relations  now  existing  between  the  State  of 
Missouri  and  the  Federal  Government. 

It  has  well  been  said  by  the  Chairman  of  the 
Committee  on  Federal  Relations,  that  the  spirit  of 
insubordination  to  established  law  is  now  prevail- 
ing throughout  our  country  to  an  extent  unknown 
in  any  other  portion  of  the  civilized  globe.  I  trust, 
gentlemen,  and  I  believe,  that  this  is  not  because 
of  any  failure  in  the  system  of  self-govern- 
ernment  which  our  ancestors  adopted.  I 
believe,  on  the  contrary,  that  it  grows  out 
of  the  fact  that  the  people,  the  source  of  power 
in  this  republican  Government  of  ours,  have 
abdicated  their  authority— that  they  have  given 
up  into  the  hands  of  designing  men  the  power 
which  they  themselves  should  hold  for  the  benefit 
of  themselves  and  their  posterity.  That  report, 
then,  is  before  this  body  for  the  purpose  of  dis- 
countenancing any  such  doctrine,  so  far  as  our 
action  is  concerned,  and  the  principles  of  that 
report  go  upon  the  idea  that  in  attempting  to  re- 
dress any  wrongs  which  either  our  fellow  citizens 
of  Missouri  or  our  fellow  citizens  of  any  of  the 
other  States  may  deem  they  have  suffered  at  the 
hands  of  the  Federal  Government,  or  at  the  hands 
of  their  sister  States  in  this  broad  Confederacy, 
they  can  be  better  remedied  within  the  Union  and 
under  the  Constitution  than  out  of  the  Union. 

Now,  the  amendment  which  is  offered  here  is 
to  the  effect  that  we  will  pledge  ourselves  not  to 
furnish  men  and  money  for  the  purpose  of  aiding 
the  General  Government  in  an  attempt  to  coerce 
a  seceding  State.  The  language  employed  in  this 
amendment  is  perhaps  unfortunate,  but  we  un- 
derstand— all  of  us  understand,  and  no  one  of  us 
now  can  fail  to  understand— the  view  in  which  this 
question  is  presented  to  this  Convention,  and  the 
meaning  of  the  term  "  coerce"  as  used  in  this 
amendment. 

Gentlemen  have  argued  as  if  those  who  op-, 
pose  it  will  advocate  the  doctrine  that  the  General 
Government  has  the  power  to  make  war  upon  a 
State  of  this  Confederacy.  But  that  is  not  the 
issue  presented  by  this  resolution,  and  it  is  not 
the  question  for  us  to  determine.  Gentlemen  have 
gone  back  to  the  debates  of  the  Convention  which 
framed  this  Constitution,  for  the  purpose  of  show- 
ing that  when  a  proposition  was  introduced  in 
that  body  authorizing  the  Federal  Government  to 
make  war  upon  one  of  the  States,  and  causing  a 
provision  to  be  inserted  to  that  effect,  it  was  voted 
down  and  argued  against  by  Mr.  Madison,  who 
is  said  to  be  the  father  of  the  Constitution.  This 
is  true.  But  why?  For  the  simple  reason  that 
this  Constitution,  this  fundamental  law  of  the 
people  of  these  United  States,  was  not  intended  to 
operate  upon  States,  but  upon  individuals.  The 
framers  of  that  Constitution  had  seen  the  defects 


115 


of  the  old  Articles  of  Confederation  which  were 
formed  in  1777  and  in  1778,  and  they  took  steps 
to  provide  for  a  more  perfect  Union.  Under  the 
provisions  of  the  old  Articles  of  Confederation  a 
State  could  not  be  coerced— individual  citizens 
of  the  State  could  not  be  forced  to  pay  taxes  to 
the  General  Government.  It  icas  a  league 
of  sovereign,  independent  States  and  not  a  Gov- 
ernment, and  it  was  so  declared  in  the  preamble 
to  the  Articles  of  Confederation.  Hence,  when- 
ever it  became  necessary  for  the  Federal  Govern- 
ment to  raise  a  revenue  to  carry  on  war,  or  for 
any  other  purpose,  it  was  necessary  that  the  States 
should  vote  a  levy  by  their  Legislatures  upon 
their  citizens.  The  Federal  Government 
had  no  power  to  enforce  it,  or 
to  collect  a  dollar  of  revenue  from  the  citi- 
zens of  the  States,  but  afterwards,  when  the  Con- 
vention met  for  the  purpose  of  framing  the  Con- 
stitution of  the  United  States,  they  declared  in 
the  preamble  of  that  instrument  that,  "we,  the 
people  of  the  United  States,  in  order  to  form  a 
more  perfect  Union,  establish  justice,  provide  for 
the  common  defence,  promote  the  general  welfare 
and  secure  the  blessings  of  liberty  to  ourselves 
and  our  posterity,  do  ordain  and  establish  this 
Government."  They  did  not  "form  this  league" 
but  ordain  and  establish  this  '"Government."  It 
is  the  people  of  the  United  State  who  ordain  and 
establish  a  Government,  and  the  question  very 
naturally  arose  in  discussion  about  the  powers  of 
Government  in  that  Convention,  as  to  whether 
the  Government  could  act  upon  States  or  not.  If 
they  could  so  act,  then  they  had  nothing  more 
than  the  old  Articles  of  Confederation.  But  they 
changed  those  Articles,  and  determined  that  in- 
stead of  being  a  league  among  States  it  should 
be  a  Government  over  individuals.  Hence  the 
Convention  gave  the  Government  power— to  do 
what?  To  levy  and  collect  taxes,  imports  and  ex- 
cises, and  exercise  various  other  rights  with  which 
you  are  acquainted.  It  also  gave  the  Government 
power  to  pass  laws  for  the  purpose  of  carrying 
those  rights  into  effect.  How  carry  them  into  ef- 
fect ?  How  does  the  Government  effect  the  collec- 
tion of  revenue?  Not  upon  States,  but  upon  in- 
dividuals. How  does  it  carry  into  effect  the  Post 
Office  system?  Not  upon  States,  but  upon  in- 
dividuals. Hoav  does  it  enforce  the  laws  of 
navigation  all  over  this  country  ?  Not  by  acting 
upon  States,  but  upon  individuals.  Hence  the 
framers  of  the  Constitution  in  that  Convention 
would  have  stultified  themselves  if  they  had  ad- 
mitted that  it  was  a  power  of  the  Government  to 
make  war  upon  States.  They  took  away  from 
the  States  the  power  to  declare  war,  to  levy 
duties  upon  imports  and  excises,  and  to  exercise 
other  rights  of  a  similar  character.  These  powers 
were  reserved  to  the  Government  of  the  United 
States,  and  the  Federal  Government  was  thereby 


brought  into  direct  relation  to  the  individual  citi- 
zens of  all  the  States. 

If  the  gentlemen  will  look  a  little  further— 
I  have  not  recently  read  the  debates  in  that  Coven- 
tion— into  those  debates  which  were  had  among 
the  wise  men  who  framed  that  instrument,  they 
will  find  that  this  is  the  reason  why  the  power  is 
not  given  to  make  war  upon  the  States.  They 
will  find  that  the  leading  idea  of  that  Convention 
was,  that  the  Federal  Government  operates  upon 
individuals  rather  than  on  States ;  and  how  far 
does  it  operate  on  individuals  ?  Let  us  look  at  it 
as  a  constitutional  question.  It  has  been  denied 
here  that  the  Federal  Government  has  power  to 
coerce  a  seceding  State.  I  deny  that  power  also; 
but  when  gentlemen  deny  the  power  incorporated 
in  that  resolution,  they  go  farther  than  the  resolu- 
tions seem  to  import.  The  gentleman  from  Ma- 
rion argued  that  if  the  General  Government 
undertook  to  collect  the  revenue,  that  war 
would  come.  This,  I  understand,  is  one  of 
his  arguments  upon  the  resolution.  If  I  inter- 
pret his  position  properly,  it  seems  to  me  to  be 
this :  if  the  Federal  Government  does  anything 
by  which  she  undertakes  to  assert  her  authority, 
to  execute  the  laws  of  the  United  States,  and  war 
ensues,  then  that  is  coercing  a  seceding  State.  If 
anything  is  done  by  a  citizen,  in  resistance  to  the 
laws  of  the  Federal  Government,  and  the  Federal 
Government  undertakes  to  exercise  its  authority 
in  executing  its  laws,  then  that  is  coercing  a  se- 
ceding State.  The  idea  of  bringing  a  State 
back  into  the  union — of  compelling  Louisia- 
na, for  example,  or  Georgia,  or  Alabama, 
or  Texas,  or  any  of  those  political  States,  as  cor- 
porations, to  come  back  into  the  United  States, 
to  send  Senators  and  Representatives  to  Con- 
gress, is  not  entertained  by  any  man.  We  do 
not  pretend  that  the  General  Government  should 
do  any  such  thing.  So  far  as  Senators  and  Rep- 
resentatives in  the  Lower  House  are  concerned, 
the  Constitution  provides  that  each  State  shall  be 
entitled  to  her  proportionate  number,  and  if  she 
does  not  send  them  it  is  her  own  fault.  It  will 
only  have  the  effect  of  making  her  lose  so  much 
power.  But  I  wish  to  meet  this  question — and  we 
had  as  well  meet  this  question  here  as  else- 
where— I  mean  the  question  as  to  how  far  the 
Federal  Government  may  call  upon  the  mi- 
litia of  the  States  within  the  Union,  to 
put  down  insubordination  in  the  seceding 
States.  I  say  I  want  to  define  my  position 
in  regard  to  this  question.  I  understand  the  gen- 
tleman to  take  the  position  that  the  Government 
of  the  United  States  has  no  such  authority.  One 
gentleman  says  that  the  President  of  the  United 
States  is  limited  to  the  execution  of  the  laws  of 
the  United  States  now  existing.  I  admit  that, 
and  will  take  it  for  granted  that  the  President 
can  execute  ho  laws  but  those  now  upon  the 
statute  books  in  regard  to  the  collection  ofreve- 


116 


nue.  Let  us  look  for  awhile  to  see  what  that 
question  is.  The  Constitution  provides  that 
Congress  shall  have  power  to  provide  for 
calling  forth  the  militia  to  execute  the  laws 
of  the  United  States,  to  suppress  insur- 
rection and  to  repel  invasions.  These  are 
three  distinct  powers  given  to  Congress,  un- 
der the  Constitution,  in  regard  to  this  matter. 
The  first  is  to  execute  the  laws  of  the  United 
States,  the  second  suppress  insurrection,  the  third 
to  repel  invasions.  They  are  separate  and  dis- 
tinct powers.  The  militia  may  be  called  forth  for 
either  one  of  these  purposes.  I  will  admit  this 
view  that,  until  there  is  a  law  of  the  United 
States  passed  by  Congress  authorizing  the  Presi- 
dent to  call  forth  the  militia  for  those  purposes,  his 
hands  are  tied,  and  he  is  compelled  to  merely  use 
forces  which  belong  to  the  standing  army  and 
navy  of  the  United  States. 

There  has  been  a  c-otemporaneous  construction 
of  these  provisions  of  the  Constitution.  In  1792, 
during  General  Washington's  administration, 
the  Congress  of  the  United  States,  for  the 
purpose  of  carrying  out  the  power  vested 
in  them  by  those  provisions,  passed  a  law 
the  first  section  of  which  provides  for  the 
case  of  an  insurrection  against  State  Govern- 
ments, and  for  calling  forth  the  militia  of  ad- 
joining States.  This  law  was  made  applicable  to 
the  cases  where  the  Executive  or  the  Legislature, 
(if  it  happened  to  be  in  session,)  of  a  State  in 
which  an  insurrection  had  taken  place,  should 
call  upon  the  President  of  the  United  States,  and 
the  latter  was  then  authorized  to  call  upon  the 
militia  of  that  or  an  adjoining  State,  to  suppress 
that  insurrection.  The  second  section  provides 
that,  whenever  the  laws  of  the  United  States 
shall  be  opposed  by  combinations  too  powerful  to 
be  suppressed  by  ordinary  course  of  judicial  pro- 
ceedings, &e.,  the  same  being  notified  to  the  Pres- 
ident by  an  Associate  Justice  or  District  Judge, 
he  shall  have  power  to  call  torth  the  militia. 
That  was  the  act  of  1792,  but  the  act  of  1795, 
which  was  passed,  if  I  recollect  the  history  of  the 
country  aright,  soon  after  the  whiskey  insurrec- 
tion in  Pennsylvania,  went  further  than  this. 
The  second  section  of  that  act  declares  that  the 
President  shall  be  authorized,  in  case  of  combi- 
nations against  the  Government  too  powerful  to 
be  suppressed  by  ordinary  course  of  judicial  pro- 
ceedings, to  call  forth  the  militia  of  such  State, 
or  of  any  other  State  or  States,  as  may  be 
necessary  to  suppress  such  combinations.  The 
only  qualifications  on  this  power  is,  that  he  is  re- 
quired first  to  issue  his  proclamation  commanding 
them  to  disperse.  By  this  act,  you  perceive  that 
the  power  was  recognized  during  the  administra- 
tion of  Gen.  Washington,  to  call  upon  the  militia 
of  the  States,  and  it  was  recognized  in  a  Con- 
gress consisting  of  many  men  who  had  been 
instrumental  in  framing  the  Constitution,  and 


who  had  participated  in  the  struggles  of  the 
American  revolution.  The  history  of  the  coun- 
try had  shown  that  such  legislation  was  necessary. 
It  had  been  but  one  year  before,  during  General 
Washington's  administration,  that  the  people  of 
Pennsylvania  rose  in  open  rebellion  against  the 
Government  of  the  United  States  for  the  purpose 
of  resisting  the  collection  of  excises  upon  the 
distilled  spirits.  Gen.  Washington  then  found  it 
necessary  on  that  occasion  to  call  15,000  troops, 
including  the  militia  from  adjoining  States,  and 
the  standing  army  of  the  United  States,  to  sup- 
press that  insurrection.  The  scenes  which  were 
then  enacted  called  for  the  passage  of  this 
very  law,  for  Washington,  if  I  recollect  aright, 
was  not  called  upon  by  the  executive  of  the  State 
of  Pennsylvania  to  lend  the  aid  of  the  General 
Government. 

You  will  see  at  once,  gentlemen,  the  reason  why 
there  should  be  three  distinct  powers  granted  to 
Congress.  Why  is  it?  What  is  the  difference 
between  an  insurrection  and  a  violation  of  the 
law?  An  insurrection  includes  both  rebellion 
against  the  Government  and  violation  of  the  law 
which  has  been  passed  by  that  Government. 
Take  the  case  above  referred  to.  There,  it  is  true 
that  every  man  engaged  in  that  insurrection— the 
object  of  which  was  to  resist  the  law  of  the  Fed- 
eral Government  in  collecting  the  revenue — 
was  guilty  of  violating  that  law.  But  would 
it  do  to  wait  until  you  could  try  each 
individual  participator  ?  When  they  had 
collected  in  large  bodies  and  were  offering  pow- 
erful resistance  ?  Would  it  do  to  wait  until  each 
man  could  be  taken  up  and  convicted  under  the 
laws  of  Congress?  How  is  it  in  regard  to  mobs 
when  they  arise  in  large  cities?  Do  the  civil 
authorities  abstain  from  action  until  each  man 
engaged  in  that  mob  can  be  tried  before  a  Justice 
of  the  Peace  and  afterwards  committed  and  in- 
indicted  before  a  Criminal  Court  and  con- 
victed? Sir,  the  very  preservation  of  socie- 
ty, preservation  of  Government  itself,  if  it  is 
worth  anything,  demands  that  it  should  have 
power  to  protect  itself  against  the  insubordi- 
nation of  its  citizens  of  that  character.  Suppose, 
for  example,  that,  as  has  been  threatened,  an 
army  of  ten  thousand  men  should  at  this  day  be 
marching  upon  the  capitol  at  Washington,  which 
is  still  the  seat  of  our  Government,  although  that 
Government  and  its  present  head  are  considered 
odious  by  many  members  in  this  Convention — I 
say  suppose  this  should  take  place,  and  the  army 
should  declare  their  object  to  be  to  destroy  the 
public  archives,  seize  upon  the  public  Treasury, 
desolate  and  lay  waste  the  capital  of  your  coun- 
try—you know  that  every  man  engaged  in  that  con- 
spiracy is  a  traitor,  and  deserves  a  traitor's  doom; 
and  you  know,  if  he  could  be  fairly  tried,  he 
would  receive  the  fate  of  a  traitor,  and  be  hung. 
But  is  the  Government  to  wait  until  those  men 


117 


could  be  punished  by  the  ordinary  civil  process  ? 
Has  the  Government  no  authority  to  call  forth 
the  militia  and  army  of  the  United  States  for  the 
driving  back  of  that  invading  host,  and  protecting 
its  own  existence,  protecting  the  interests  which 
are  dear  to  you,  and  dear  to  all  the  people  yet  re- 
maining in  this  confederacy?  If  the  Govern- 
ment has  no  such  power  as  that,  I  would  not 
give  a  fig  for  such  a  Government.  But  sup- 
pose it  calls  upon  the  militia  of  a  State, 
would  you  call  that  coercion?  Suppose  South 
Carolina,  for  example,  should  send  an  ar- 
my, led  by  Gen.  Beauregard,  who  now 
has  command  of  her  forces,  to  Washington 
City — this  might  have  occurred  two  months  ago, 
three  weeks  ago.  Suppose,  further,  that  Virginia 
had  passed  a  resolution  that  she  wrould  neither 
furnish  men  nor  money  for  the  purpose  of  coer- 
cing a  seceding  State,  in  other  words,  for  the 
purpose  of  raising  an  army  to  resist  an  invasion 
of  this  sort;  then  she  would  occupy  precisely  the 
position  that  we  would  occupy  if  we  adopted  this 
resolution  with  the  amendment  which  is  tried  to 
be  put  upon  it.  Now,  would  that  be  an  attempt 
to  coerce  a  seceding  State?  No  one  pretends,  and 
gentlemen  who  argue  in  favor  of  the  amendment 
do  not  pretend  that  Mr.  Lincoln  or  anybody  else 
proposes  to  march  an  army  into  the  State  of 
South  Carolina,  or  Georgia,  for  the  purpose  of 
making  war  upon  the  citizens  of  those  States. 
But  are  we  to  have  our  hands  tied  for  all  time  to 
come,  and  not  prepared  for  any  emergency  that 
may  arise,  when  our  duty  to  our  country,  our 
duty  to  ourselves,  and,  it  may  be,  our  duty  to  our 
fellow- citizens  of  the  South,  who  are  now  borne 
down  by  a  military  despotism,  such  as  has  never 
existed  in  this  country  before,may  demand  that  ac- 
tion? When  they  shall  call  upon  us  for  succor- 
are  we  to  have  our  hands  tied  down,  so  as  to  be 
estopped  from  aiding  the  Federal  Government  in 
protecting  them? 

Furthermore,  gentlemen  of  the  Convention, 
suppose  that  the  infamous  military  bill  which  is 
now  before  the  Missouri  Legislature,  should  pass, 
and  Major  General  Jackson,  who  would  be  com- 
mander of  troops  under  that  bill,  should  declare 
that  war  exists  in  Missouri — that  an  insurrection 
has  taken  place  in  the  State;  then  you  are  all  put 
under  martial  law.  The  articles  of  war  contained 
in  that  bill  are  then  in  full  force,  and  the  laws 
which  now  govern  our  relations  in  this  State  are 
silent.  You  all  know  that  our  laws  then  would 
be  silent.  Gentlemen,  no  truer  remark  was 
ever  made  than  that  by  the  Roman  orator,  who, 
in  the  midst  of  a  great  social  conflict,  declared 
that  in  the  midst  of  the  clash  of  arms  the  laws 
are  silent.  So  soon  as  Maj.  Gen.  Jackson  de- 
clares that  war  exists,  or  an  insurrection  exists 
in  the  State  of  Missouri,  he  puts  us  all  under  the 
articles  of  war,  and  you  cannot  speak  disrespect- 
fully of  the  Governor  or  the  Lieutenant  Governor 


else  you  may  be  subject  to  be  brought  before 
a  drum-head  court  martial,  tried,  and  taken  out 
by  a  file  of  soldiers  and  shot  down.  Gentlemen, 
that  bill  gives  that  power,  beyond  all  question. 
Suppose  such  a  state  of  things  should  happen, 
and  we  should  know  directly  from  the  people  that 
the  sentiments  embraced  in  that  bill  do  not  rep- 
resent the  sentiments  of  the  people  of  Missouri, 
and  know,  as  Ave  do  know,  that  it  is  in  violation 
of  the  Constitution  of  Missouri;  then  if  an  attempt 
is  made  to  further  carry  us  out  of  the  Union, 
under  military  rule,  he  would  be  guilty  of  treason 
to  his  country  and  we  would  not  be  bound  by  his 
acts. 

Then,  where  shall  we  look  for  protection?  I 
want  to  be  put  in  such  a  situation  as  that  I  can 
call  upan  my  Government  to  protect  us  against 
the  treasonable  plots  of  these  men. 

I  shall  then  object  to  the  amendment.  If  one 
State  of  the  Union  may  take  this  position,  then  all 
may  take  it.  If  Missouri  may  take  it,  Illinois 
may  take  it;  Kentucky,  Massachusetts,  every 
State  in  the  Union  may  take  it.  They  may  all 
make  the  pledge  that  they  will  not  aid  the  Gov- 
ernment of  the  United  States  in  executing  its 
laws.  What  would  be  the  consequence?  The 
consequence  would  be  that  this  Government  would 
be  broken  up.  That  it  would  be  destroyed;  that 
all  authority  would  be  at  an  end.  It  involves  the 
proposition,  then,  of  the  destruction  of  the  Gov- 
ernment. It  is  the  strongest  argument  that  has 
yet  been  used  in  favor  of  Secession,  because  if 
one  State  can  take  that  position,  every  State  can 
take  it;  and  if  all  the  States  of  the  Union  can 
take  it  there  is  an  end  of  the  Government— an 
end  of  the  United  States  of  America.  If  the 
amendment  simply  meant  that  we  would  not  at- 
tempt to  wage  war,  against  a  State  in  its  sove- 
reign capacity,  it  would  be  a  different  proposi- 
tion. But  that  is  not  what  it  means,  and  the  only 
question  we  have  to  determine  in  regard  to  it,  is 
as  to  what  will  be  the  consequences  of  taking 
such  a  position. 

Whilst  I  am  up,  Mr.  President,  I  wish  to  say  a 
word  or  two  upon  the  other  questions  which  are 
before  this  body.  I  have  read  over  the  report 
which  was  made  by  the  majority  of  the  Commit- 
tee of  Federal  Relations.  I  have  read  it  care- 
fully. I  have  read  the  resolutions  appended  to 
that  report. 

Mr.  Gamble.  If  the  gentleman  will  give  way 
for  a  moment,  I  will  make  a  motion  to  adjourn. 

Mr.  Broadhead.  I  have  no  objection  to  such 
a  motion,  provided  I  can  have  an  opportunity  of 
concluding  my  remarks  in  the  morning. 

Mr.  Gantt.  Before  that  motion  is  put,  I  de- 
sire to  say  that  for  the  dispatch  of  business,  it 
seems  to  me  the  Convention  had  better  sit  only 
once  a  day— that  we  had  better  have  one  long 
session  than  two  short  sessions.  For  that  pur- 
pose, I  would  move  that  the  Convention  hereafter 


118 


meet  at  10  o'clock  in  the  morning  and  adjourn  at 
3  o'clock  in  the  afternoon.  I  understand  that  no 
inconvenience  will  result  to  the  members  in  re- 
gard to  their  dinners,  as  some  of  the  hotel  keep- 
ers have  announced  themselves  willing  to  con- 
form to  any  arrangement  the  Convention  may 
make. 

Mr.  Gantt's  motion  was  put  and  carried. 

Convention  thereupon  adjourned. 


TWELFTH    DAY. 

St.  Louis,  March  14th,  1861. 
Convention  met  at  10  o'clock. 
Prayer  by  the  Chaplain.    Journal  read  and  ap- 
proved. 

Mr.  Gamble.  I  am  directed  by  the  Committee 
on  Federal  Relations  to  lay  before  the  Convention 
a  resolution  which  they  have  offered  and  report- 
ed, to  be  read  now  simply  for  information,  that  it 
may  be  laid  on  the  table  and  printed.  It  will  be 
offered  as  an  additional  resolution  at  the  proper 
time,  when  the  report  comes  up  for  consideration. 
The  resolution  was  then  read  by  the  Secretary 
as  follows : 

Whereas,  it  is  probable  that  the  Convention 
of  the  State  of  Virginia,  now  in  session,  will  re- 
quest a  meeting  of  Delegates  from  the  Border 
States  for  the  purpose  of  devising  some  plan  for 
the  adjustment  of  our  national  difficulties;  and, 
whereas  the  State  of  Missouri  participates  strong- 
ly in  the  desire  for  such  adjustment,  and  de- 
sires to  show  respect  for  the  wishes  of  Virginia; 
Therefore, 
Be  it  Resolved,   That   this    Convention   will 

elect Delegates,  whose  duty  it  shall  be  to 

attend  at  such  time  and  place  as  may  be  desig- 
nated by  the  Convention  of  the  State  of  Virginia 
for  the  meeting  of  Delegates  from  the  Border 
States ;  and  if  there  should  assemble,  then  and 
there,  Delegates  duly  accredited  from  a  majority 
of  the  States  invited  to  such  conference,  then  the 
Delegates  from  this  Convention  shall  enter  into 
conference  with  them,  and  shall  endeavor  to  de- 
vise apian  for  the  amicable  and  equitable  adjust- 
ment of  all  matters  in  difference  between  the 
States  of  this  Union.  And  the  Delegates  ap- 
pointed under  this  resolution  shall  report  their 
proceedings  in  such  conference,  and  any  plan 
that  may  be  there  agreed  upon,  to  this  Conven- 
tion for  its  approval  or  rejection. 

Mr.  Hudgins.  I  rise  to  a  privileged  question. 
The  intelligence  I  have  received  from  my  family 
is  of  such  a  nature  as  to  make  it  necessary  for 
me  to  request  leave  of  absence  until  Monday,  if 
it  be  the  pleasure  of  the  Convention  to  permit  me 
to  return  home. 

The  Chair.  It  will  be  granted  unless  objection 
is  made. 


Mr.  Shackelford,  of  Howard.  I  desire  to 
make  a  statement  to  the  Convention  in  relation 
to  the  question  of  mileage,  which  has  been 
before  the  Committee  on  Accounts.  We  have  had 
some  difficulty  in  adjusting  this  question,  but  I 
hold  in  my  hand  a  copy  of  the  law  recently  passed 
by  the  Legislature,  which  does  not  take  effect  un- 
til the  first  of  May.  Although  we  are  not 
bound  by  the  provisions  of  that  law,  yet  I 
would  state  that  so  far  as  the  Committee 
have  examined  it — that  is,  the  amount 
allowed  to  the  members  of  the  Legisla- 
ture from  each  county— they  believe  it  is 
equitable  and  just;  more  so  than  the  old  system 
of  mileage,  and  I  desire  that  it  may  be  read,  and 
if  there  is  no  serious  objection  to  it  on  the  part 
of  the  Convention,  why,  we  shall  make  this 
new  law  a  basis  of  our  calculation  of  mileage 
from  the  various  counties  herein  named. 

The  recent  act  passed  by  the  Legislatui-e  was 
then  read  by  the  Secretary,  together  with  the 
amount  of  mileage  allowed  each  member  in  ac- 
cordance with  the  act.  After  which,  the  report 
was  laid  on  the  table. 

Mr.  Broadhead.  When  I  closed  my  remarks 
yesterday  upon  the  amendment  now  before  the 
Convention,  I  had  undertaken  to  show — and  I 
think  I  had  conclusively  shown — that  so  far  as 
this  question  of  constitutional  power  was  con- 
cerned, there  was  no  doubt  that  it  was  vested  in 
the  hands  of  the  Federal  Government,  and  when 
I  say  constitutional  power,  I  undertook  to  ex- 
plain that  it  meant  the  constitutional  power  to 
coerce  the  citizens  of  seceding  States,  and  not  the 
constitutional  power  to  coerce  seceding  States. 
In  other  words,  the  meaning  of  this  amendment 
is,  that  we  are  to  be  pledged  if  we  vote  for  that 
amendment  to-day  to  deny  the  power  to  the 
Federal  Government  to  coerce  the  citizens  of 
seceding  States  in  any  emergency.  In  other 
words,  we  deny  the  Federal  Government  the 
power  to  execute  any  laws,  and  we  deny  the 
power  to  suppress  insurrection  and  repel 
invasion.  As  to  the  expediency  of  exer- 
cising that  power,  that  is  not  the  question  now, 
and  I  am  not  here  for  the  purpose  of  arguing 
this  question  as  a  question  of  present  expediency, 
but  for  the  purpose  of  showing  the  impropriety 
of  this  body  pled  gin  gits  elf,  on  behalf  of  the  State 
of  Missouri,  that  it  will  resist  any  support  to  the 
Federal  Government,  in  any  emergency  that  may 
hereafter  arise  in  the  history  of  our  country,  in 
executing  its  plain  constitutional  powers.  I  have 
shown,  I  think,  gentlemen  of  the  Convention, 
that  this  power  is  a  power  necessary  to  the  pre- 
servation of  the  very  existence  of  the  Govern- 
ment itself.  I  have  shown,  and  I  think  conclu- 
sively, that  it  comes  within  the  plain  letter  of  the 
Constitution  which  grants  Congress  the  power  of 
calling  forth  the  militia  of  the  several  States  to 
execute  the  laws  of  the  Government,  to  suppress 


119 


insurrection  and  repel  invasion.  I  have  under- 
taken to  show,  and  I  think  have  conclusively 
shown,  that  by  cotemporary  acts  of  those  wise 
men  who  framed  that  fundamental  law,  they 
gave  the  same  interpretation  to  it  that  I  have; 
the  act  of  1793  and  the  act  of  1795,  by  their 
very  terms,  contained  in  the  preample,  de- 
clared that  they  were  acts  to  provide  for 
executing  the  laws  of  the  United  States,  for 
the  suppression  of  insurrections  and  repelling 
invasions,  and  showing  by  the  language  of  that 
act  that  what  was  meant  by  the  suppression  of 
insurrection  was  the  suppression  of  combina- 
tions in  any  part  of  the  country,  and  that 
these  were  to  -be  suppressed  by  an  army,  if 
necessary.  Thus  all  these  cotemporary  acts  of 
the  fathers  of  the  country  showed  that  they  inter- 
preted that  instrument  as  I  now  do.  I  will  ad- 
duce another  authority,  although  I  did  not  intend 
to  go  back  and  read  the  opinions  of  Madison  or 
Jefferson,  or  any  body  else,  but  to  rely  simply  up- 
on acts  of  Congress  and  the  provisions  of  the  Con- 
stitution itself.  I  have  undertaken  to  show  that 
when  Mr.  Madison  declared,  in  the  Convention 
that  framed  the  Constitution,  that  he  was  op- 
posed to  giving  the  Federal  Government  the  pow- 
er to  make  war  upon  a  State.,  that  he  intended 
that  the  Government  should  operate  upon  indi- 
viduals in  the  State,  and  not  upon  the  State  in  its 
sovereign  political  capacity.  I  will  read,  howev- 
er, for  the  purpose  of  carrying  out  that  idea,  a  re- 
mark made  by  Patrick  Henry  of  Virginia — a 
man  whose  name  is  so  well  known  to  every  Ameri- 
can citizen,  whose  eloquent  voice  was  raised  in 
defense  of  the  rights  of  his  countrymen  in  those 
days  that  tried  men's  souls.  I  read  from  his  argu- 
ment in  the  Virginia  Convention  which  had  this 
clause  under  consideration  which  we  are  now  dis- 
cussing. You  will  recollect,  gentlemen,  if  you  go 
back  to  the  history  of  the  formation  of  the  Consti- 
tution, that  there  was  a  large  party  in  the  State  of 
Virginia  and  other  States  which  claimed  that  the 
Federal  Government,  framed  under  the  Constitu- 
tion adopted  in  1789,  was  a  consolidated  govern- 
ment. There  was  a  party  in  Virginia  which  object- 
ed to  Virginia's  going  into  the  Union  under  that 
Constitution,  taking  the  ground  that  she  was  sub- 
mitting herself  to  a  consolidated  government; 
that  the  Government,  instead  of  being  federal  in 
its  features,  was  national;  that  the  power  was 
vested  in  one  head,  and  that  it  could  operate  on 
individuals ;  that  the  people  of  the  United  States 
had  constituted  themselves  one  nation.  They  ar- 
gued against  the  adoption  of  this  provision  of 
the  Constitution  upon  that  ground,  but  they  did 
not  deny  in  debate  that  these  powers  existed. 
I  read  then  from  the  argument  of  Patrick 
Henry  in  the  Virginia  Convention  against  the 
adoption  of  the  Constitution.  Mr.  Madison  had 
made  an  argument  in  support  of  it,  and  Mr.  Hen- 
ry made  an  argument  against  it.    He  said : 


"  The  worthy  member  said  that  Congress  ought 
to  have  power  to  protect  all,  and  had  given  this 
system  the  highest  encomium.  But  he  insisted 
that  the  power  over  the  militia  was  concurrent. 
To  obviate  the  futility  of  this  doctrine,  Mr.  Henry 
alleged  that  it  was  not  reducible  to  practice.  Ex- 
amine it,  says  he;  reduce  it  to  practice.  Suppose 
an  insurrection  in  Virginia,  and  suppose  there  be 
danger  apprehended  of  an  insurrection  in  another 
State,  from  the  exercise  of  the  Government;  or 
suppose  a  national  war,  and  there  be  discontents 
among  the  people  of  this  State,  that  produce,  or 
threaten,  an  insurrection ;  suppose  Congress,  in 
either  case,  demands  a  number  of  militia — will 
they  not  be  obliged  to  go  ?  Where  are  your  re- 
served rights,  when  your  militia  go  to  a  neigh- 
boring State?  Which  call  is  to  be  obeyed,  the 
Congressional  call,  or  the  call  of  the  State  Legis- 
lature?   The  call  of  Congress  must  be  obeyed." 

That  was  the  argument  of  Patrick  Henry 
against  this  provision  of  the  Constitution,  and  it 
shows  that  he  understood  it  as  we  do,  and  that 
Mr.  Madison  understood  as  Ave  do.  I  think,  then, 
so  far  as  this  question  of  constitutional  power  is 
concerned,  there  can  be  no  question — that  when- 
ever insurrection  takes  place  in  a  given  State,  the 
General  Government  has  the  power  to  suppress 
it.  I  care  not  how  it  may  arise,  whether  by  the 
head  of  the  Government,  or  by  any  citizen  holding 
office  in  the  State  Government,  or  by  a  combina- 
tion of  citizens  against  the  authority  of  the  Gov- 
ernment, it  is  insurrection,  so  declared  by  act  of 
Congress  and  understood  by  the  Federal  Govern- 
ment; and,  if  a  State  officer  head  the  insurrection, 
he  is  raising  his  hand  against  the  Government 
which  he  has  sworn  to  support,  because  he  has 
taken  an  oath  to  support  the  Constitution  of  the 
United  States,  and  that  instrument  declares  that 
all  the  acts  passed  by  Congress  shall  be  the  su- 
preme law  of  the  land,  the  constitution  of  a  State 
or  State  laws  to  the  contrary  notwithstanding. 
This,  then,  disposes  of  the  question  of  Constitu- 
tional power. 

What  is  the  other  argument  of  gentlemen  in 
regard  to  this  matter?  When  men  plant  them- 
selves upon  constitutional  provisions  and  refuse 
to  do  what  they  think  will  be  in  violation  of 
the  Constitution  of  the  land— and  are  driven 
from  the  question  of  Constitutional  power  the 
next  argument  is,  what?  An  appeal  to  revolu- 
tion. Because,  if  the  Federal  Government  has  the 
power  to  call  upon  the  militia  of  the  States  to  ex- 
ecute the  laws  of  the  United  States,  to  suppress 
insurrections  or  combinations — if  it  has  that 
power,  and  we  pledge  ourselves  that  we  will  not 
obey  such  demands,  then  we  pledge  ourselves  to 
resist  the  Government— we  pledge  ourselves,  in 
other  words,  to  take  the  red  right  hand  of  revo- 
lution and  resist  the  Government.  Are  we  pre- 
pared for  that?  Hence  the  gentleman  from 
Buchanan  (Mr.  Hall)    said  this  was  an  argu- 


120 


ment  in  favor  of  secession.  When  men  plant 
themselves  upon  that  position,  they  take  a  posi- 
tion that  they  will  resist  and  rebel  against  the  au- 
thority of  the  Government— that  they  -will  en- 
gage in  revolution,  and  for  the  purpose  of  pre- 
paring the  minds  of  this  Convention  and  the  peo- 
ple of  Missouri  for  that  dread  arbitrament,  they 
appeal  to  Southern  prejudices.  The  gentleman 
from  Marion  (Mr.  Redd)  says  he  will  never  take 
up  arms  under  Abraham  Lincoln.  Who  is  Abra- 
ham Lincoln?  I  care  not  what  his  antecedents 
may  be,  I  care  not  what  his  intellectual  powers 
may  be :  Abraham  Lincoln  is  now  the  President  of 
these  United  States ;  and  when  a  gentleman  pledg- 
es himself  that  he  will  never  obey  his  authority, 
he  pledges  himself  that  he  will  resist  the  author- 
ity of  the  lawfully  elected  President  of  the  United 
States. 

Mr.  Redd.  Permit  me  to  explain.  My  state- 
ment is  this :  that  I  never  will  take  up  arms,  nor 
can  Missouri,  in  my  judgment,  take  up  arms 
under  Abraham  Lincoln,  to  coerce  a  sovereign 
State  to  compel  it  to  submit. 

Mr.  Broadhbad.  Well,  about  coercing  a 
Sovereign  State.  Gentlemen  are  very  indefinite 
in  their  meaning  about  this  word  coercion.  If 
they  would  just  tell  us  what  they  mean  by  it,  and 
not  speak  in  vague  and  indefinite  terms  on  the 
subject  of  coercion,  then  I  could  understand 
them.  How  do  they  meet  this  argument? 
They  appeal  to  Southern  honor— honor  is 
the  subject  of  their  story.  The  gentleman 
from  Andrew  says,  I  love  the  Constitution 
of  my  country— I  love  the  Union  of  these 
States— 'but  I  cannot  sacrifice  my  honor! 
What  honor  ?  Is  there  any  honor  in  resisting 
the  laws  of  your  country?  Let  us  look  at  this 
question  as  reasonable  men,  and  I  trust  we  are 
willing  to  meet  it  as  such.  Doubtless  the  citizens 
of  Pennsylvania,  when  they  resisted  the  excise 
law  during  the  Administration  of  Washington, 
thought  their  honor  was  invaded — they  thought 
they  had  a  constitutional  right  to  manufacture 
whiskey  out  of  rye  and  corn,  and  they  felt  that 
constitutional  right  was  as  dear  to  them,  I  sup- 
pose, as  the  right  of  the  slaveholder  to  take  his 
slaves  into  the  Territories.  They  doubtless  ap- 
pealed to  each  other's  honor,  and  forthwith  took 
up  arms  against  the  government  of  that  State; 
which  not  being  strong  enough  to  put  them  down, 
they  then  took  up  arms  against  the  United  States. 
Massachusetts,  when  she  resisted  the  embargo 
law,  thought  her  honor  was  implicated,  because 
the  embargo  was  unconstitutional.  South 
Carolina,  in  1832,  when  she  resisted  the  tariff  of 
1828,  thought  her  honor  was  implicated,  because, 
as  she  supposed,  an  unconstitutional  law  had 
been  passed.  Every  man  who  resists  the  law  has 
some  excuse  for  resistance.  A  man  takes  the  life 
of  his  fellow  citizen  on  the  street  because  his  hon- 
or requires  him  t©  do  it.    The  poet  has  well  said : 


"No  rogue  e'er  felt  the  halter  draw 
With  good  opinion  of  the  law." 

Every  man  who  resists  the  authority  of  the  Gov- 
ernment, thinks  that  m  resisting  it  he  is  defend- 
ing his  honor !  Why  is  it,  when  men  are  talking 
about  the  Union  and  the  execution  of  the  law, 
constitutional  and  unconstitutional,  should  we 
appeal  to  honor?  Honor  will  impel  him  to  do 
what?  To  take,  as  the  gentleman  from  Andrew 
eloquently  explained,  a  halter  in  one  hand  and  a 
sword  in  the  other,  and  involve  the  country  in  a 
civil  broil,  and  imbrue  our  hands  in  fraternal  blood, 
and  destroy  the  brightest  prospects  ever  held  out 
to  the  world  or  to  humanity.  Does  his  honor  re- 
quire him  to  do  that? 

What  is  the  nature  of  rebellion  ?  Is  it  not  the 
destruction  of  property — the  destruction  of  per- 
sonal rights — the  destruction  of  personal  security — 
the  destruction  of  everything  which  is  held  dear 
by  men  in  this  world?  Does  honor  require  us  to 
do  that  ?  Does  honor  require  us  to  involve  this 
country  in  revolution ?  And  for  what?  Because 
the  Government  of  the  United  States  may  require 
you  to  execute  the  constitutional  law.  Out  upon 
such  honor  as  this !  I  take  it  that  the  true  dic- 
tates of  honor  require  a  man  to  be  loyal  to  his 
country,  until  a  time  shall  come  when  the  oppres- 
sions of  that  Government  are  such  that  no  man 
can  submit  to  them.  When  the  wrongs  which 
despotism  may,  from  time  to  time,  inflict,  become 
unbearable,  then,  and  not  till  then,  is  a  man  jus- 
tified in  resorting  to  revolution  in  vindication  of 
his  honor. 

Much  has  been  said  about  sectionalism,  and 
yet  upon  all  these  questions  we  hear  appeals  made 
to  the  honor  of  the  South.  Now,  gentlemen,  I 
think  I  feel  as  sensitive  of  the  honor  of  my  na- 
tive State  as  any  man.  And  as  it  may  be  appro- 
priate in  this  connexion,  I  desire  to  state  that  I 
claim  to  be  a  native  of  a  Southern  State.  I  was 
born  and  educated  in  the  Old  Dominion.  I  love 
my  native  State.  I  love  her  blue  mountains  and 
her  green  valleys.  I  love  her  for  the  glories 
that  cluster  around  her  at  the  present  day. 
I  love  her  on  account  of  those  venerated  men 
she  has  given  not  only  to  bless  this  country,  but 
the  world — men  who  have  been  considered  first 
in  war,  first  in  peace,  and  first  in  the  councils  of 
their  country.  And,  gentlemen  of  the  Conven- 
tion, if  there  is  any  bond  of  affection  which 
ties  me  to  my  native  State  stronger  than  another, 
it  is  that  now,  in  this  day  that  tries  men's  souls, 
upon  the  floor  ot  her  Convention,  her  Somers, 
her  Stuarts,  her  Moors,  now  stand  up  for  the  flag 
of  their  country,  which  their  ancestors  gave 
them. 

I  will  say  a  few  words  in  regard  to  the  repon 
of  the  Committee  on  Federal  Relations.  It  is  an 
able  document.  I  say,  as  a  whole,  and  taking 
the  resolutions  as  a  whole,  they  meet  with  my 
approbation.    There  are  some  things,  however, 


121 


occupying  the  position  I  do,  in  that  report  and 
in  these  resolutions,  about  which  I  am  called  upon 
to  say  something.  I  speak  particularly  of  that 
resolution— and  I  shall  only  give  it  a  passing 
notice — which  recommends  the  Crittenden  Com- 
promise, as  it  is  called,  and  its  extension  to  Ter- 
ritory yet  to  be  acquired.  My  chief  objection  to  that 
resolution  is  that  it  has  been  tried  before  by  the 
people  of  the  United  States  at  various  times,  and 
that  from  the  history  of  the  efforts  that  have  been 
made  to  have  it  adopted,  it  has  been  shown  that  it 
does  not  meet  with  the  approbation  of  the  coun- 
try—I mean,  particularly,  that  portion  of  it  which 
proposes  to  extend  its  provisions  to  territory  here- 
after to  be  acquired.  It  was  submitted  to  the 
Border  State  Convention  and  rejected  by  them; 
it  was  submitted  to  the  Peace  Conference  and 
they  did  not  adopt  it;  it  was  submitted  to  the 
Committee  of  Thirty- three  and  they  did  not  adopt 
it;  and  so  I  think,  although  it  is  not  put  down 
in  this  resolution  as  an  ultimatum,  I  think  it  may 
in  time  have  that  effect,  and  will  be  looked  upon 
by  the  people  of  the  country  as  an  ultimatum, 
and  that  they  will  not  be  satisfied  with  any  oth^r 
settlement.  I  object  to  its  extending  to  a  terri- 
tory yet  to  be  acquired,  because  I  think  it  holds 
out  an  inducement  for  further  acquisition  of  ter- 
ritory and  unnecessarily  tend  to  involve  us  in 
wars  with  other  countries,  in  order  that  slave 
territory  may  be  acquired. 

I  shall  not  go  back  into  the  past  history  of  the 
country  to  elucidate  this  position.  I  state  this 
briefly  as  my  objection  to  the  adoption  of  the 
resolution.  I  am  not  prepared  to  say  that  I  will  vote 
against  it,  but  I  will  state  that  this  is  the  po- 
sition I  took  before  my  constituents — a  position 
upon  which  I  was  elected  to  a  seat  in  this  Con- 
vention, and  I  state  here  my  solemn  convictions 
in  regard  to  that  proposition,  not  only  that  it 
is  wrong,  but  that  no  good  can  be  accomplished 
by  urging  it.  However,  we  are  here  in  the 
spirit  of  compromise.  Missouri  has  a  mission 
to  perform  in  her  action  at  the  present  day. 
Her  duty  is  to  do  all  she  can  consistently  with 
her  honor  and  interest  to  bind  together  the  dis- 
cordant elements  that  now  exist  in  this  coun- 
try, and  bring  back,  if  possible,  the  seceding 
States  into  the  bosom  of  the  Federal  family.  Her 
next  duty  is  to  herself— to  see  what  her  own 
honor  or  interest  requires,  and  to  see  what  posi- 
tion she  must  necessarily  occupy.  Hence,  upon 
the  first  proposition,  so  far  as  the  settlement  of 
this  question  is  concerned,  I  am  willing  to  give  up 
much,  even  of  what  I  consider  to  be  best  for  the 
accomplishment  of  this  object,  to  the  opinions  of 
wiser  and  better  men  than  myself.  I  trust  I  am 
willing  to  meet  this  question  divested  of  all  pre- 
vious party  predilections  and  prejudices— that  I 
can  meet  this  question  as  a  Missourian — as  an 
American  citizen.  And  that  is  the  position  I  in- 
tend to  occupy.     Standing  here  in  Missouri — 


neither  with  the  North  nor  with  the  South— stand- 
ing in  the  bosom,  in  the  middle  of  this  great 
valley,  as  American  citizens,  as  Missourians, 
it  is  our  duty  as  Missourians  and  American  citi- 
zens to  take  a  position  neither  with  the  one  or  nor 
with  the  other.  I  am  willing  to  cast  aside  past 
predilections,  and  grapple  with  this  great  ques- 
tion, if  I  know  myself,  without  being  influenced 
by  any  such  considerations.  In  the  report  which 
has  been  read  by  that  committee,  I  could  have 
hoped  that  while  Missouri  assumes  to  act  the 
part  of  a  mediator,  she  should  assume  the  cha- 
racter of  a  mediator — and  what  is  the  part  of  a 
mediator?  either  to  let  bygones  be  bygones, 
and  to  say  nothing  which  may  inflame  the 
minds  of  one  section  or  the  other,  or  to  show 
the  faults  of  both.  Hence,  I  could  have  wished 
that  while  that  report  undertook  to  denounce 
the  party  of  1,800,000  citizens  of  the  United 
States,  who  have  elevated  the  present  Chief 
Executive  to  the  Chair  as  a  sectional  party — 
that  while  it  was  denouncing  Northern  men 
for  opposing  Southern  men,  that  it  could  also 
have  recorded  some  of  the  acts  of  the  Southern 
politicians  which  have  been  calculated  to  in- 
flame the  Northern  mind.  I  could  have  hoped 
that  they  would  not  have  failed  to  forget  that 
that  great  measure  which  was  canonized  in 
the  hearts  of  the  American  people,  the  Missouri 
Compromise,  which  gave  peace  to  a  distracted 
country  for  thirty  years— I  could  have  hoped  that 
they  would  not  have  failed  to  recollect  that  that 
law  was  ruthlessly  torn  from  the  statute  book.  I 
could  have  hoped  that  they  could  not  have  failed 
to  recollect  the  abuse  which  has  been  heaped 
upon  some  Northern  men,  and  particularly  upon 
that  old  sage  of  Massachusetts,  John  Quincy 
Adams,  for  standing  upon  the  right  of  petition  as 
a  constitutional  right,  belonging  even  to  the  hum- 
blest and  most  fanatical  of  his  fellow  citizens ;  and 
I  could  have  hoped  that  they  would  not  have  failed 
to  recollect  that  there  has  grown  up,  that  for  many 
years  there  has  been  growing  up,  in  the  Southern 
mind,  a  system  of  tyranny  in  public  opinion 
which  has  denounced  and  put  down  every  man 
who  chose  to  call  in  question  the  opinion  of  the 
dominant  party  on  the  subject  of  slavery — a  sys- 
tem which,  while  it  permitted  individuals  to  talk 
on  all  other  questions,  while  they  were  at  liberty 
to  discuss  questions  of  general  political  economy 
of  morals  and  religion,  they  could  not  talk  upon 
this  one  question ;  and  I  could  have  hoped 
that  the  Committee  would  not  have  failed  to 
recollect  that  there  has  been  formed,  in  the  mad- 
ness of  the  hour,  in  the  Southern  States,  an  or- 
ganization which  has  seized  upon  our  arsenals 
and  upon  our  forts;  which  has  robbed  the  treasu- 
ry of  our  common  country,  and  which  is  now 
seeking  to  cover  up  in  anarchy  and  blood  the 
damning  evidences  of  its  guilt.  But  I  pass  these 
questions  all  by,  as  sins  of  omission  rather  than 


122 


commission.  There  is  one  question,  at  least, 
upon  which  we  can  all  stand,  and  that  is  the  first 
resolution — that  there  is  no  cause  existing  why 
Missouri  should  go  out  of  the  Union,  and  dis- 
solve her  connection  with  the  Government.  Upon 
this  question,  as  I  said,  Missouri  is  interested. 
Missouri  has  an  interest  of  her  own,  and  must 
speak  for  herself.  And  I  shall  enforce  that  posi- 
tion by  a  reference  to  her  present  geographical 
position.  So  far  as  this  question  of  slavery  is 
concerned,  I  shall  enter  as  little  into  it  as  possi- 
ble; but  when  gentlemen  talk  about  violating  the 
institutions  of  their  States,  I  want  them  to 
talk  sensibly  upon  the  subject,  and  let  us  know 
what  they  mean.  What  are  the  institutions 
of  Missouri,  and  what  her  position  in 
this  confederation  of  States?  I  admit  that 
negro  slavery  is  one  of  her  institutions.  But  she 
has  other  institutions,  if  they  may  be  so  called, 
which  are  equally  as  dear  to  her  as  the  question 
of  negro  slavery.  Ten  years  ago  she  had  90,000 
slaves  within  her  limits,  and  something  over 
500,000  free  white  inhabitants.  The  last  census 
shows  that  we  have  112,000  slaves,  and  upward  of 
1,100,000  free  white  inhabitants.  The  increase  of 
slaves  during  that  time  has  been  twenty-five  per 
cent;  the  increase  of  our  white  population  has 
been  over  one  hundred  per  cent.  Taxable  prop- 
erty in  the  State  of  Missouri  ten  years  ago,  ac- 
cording to  the  census,  was  $136,000,000;  the  tax- 
able property  of  Missouri  to-day  is  $360,000,000. 
Her  taxable  property,  then,  has  increased  in  the 
ratio  of  more  than  three  to  one,  her  white  popu- 
lation has  doubled  itself,  and  her  slave  popula- 
tion has  only  increased  in  the  ratio  of  twenty-five 
per  cent.  Now,  will  you  tell  me  what  has  given 
this  additional  wealth  to  Missouri?  Is  it  the 
slave  population,  when  that  increase  has  only 
been  twenty-five  per  cent;  or  is  it  the  increase  of 
the  white  population,  when  that  increase  has 
been  over  one  hundred  per  cent?  The  value 
of  slave  property  in  Missouri,  as  stated 
by  my  friend  from  Andrew,  (Mr.  Hudgins,) 
yesterday,  is  about  $100,000,000.  The  report  of 
the  Auditor  of  Public  Accounts  at  Jefferson  City, 
published  last  winter,  shows  that  the  taxable 
value  of  the  slave  property  of  Missouri,  is 
$45,000,000;  one-ninth  of  the  taxable  property  of 
the  State,  and  less  than  half  the  estimate  made  by 
my  friend  from  Andrew,  showing  that  he  is  as 
badly  mistaken  in  his  statistics  in  regard  to  the 
slave  interests  and  slave  property  in  Missouri,  as 
he  is  in  regard  to  his  doctrine  of  constitutional 
power.  "Where  has  this  great  increase  in  the 
white  population  of  the  State  come  from?  The 
resources  of  Missouri  are  various;  her  interests 
consist  in  her  agricultural,  mineral  and  com- 
mercial resources.  Her  slave  population  is  en- 
gaged in  raising  hemp  and  tobacco  principally, 
but  there  are  mining,  manufacturing  and  com- 
mercial interests,  and  who  is  to  carry  them  on? 


j  You  have  within  100  miles  of  St.  Louis,  iron 
enough  to  supply  the  wants  of  the  world  for  cen- 
turies to  come.  It  is  estimated  by  a  scientific 
man,  who  has  recently  made  that  a  subject  of 
investigation,  that  there  are  contained  within  the 
Iron  Mountain  alone,  two  hundred  and  thirty 
million  tons  of  iron.  It  is  now  accessible  to  this 
city  by  railroad,  and  all  that  is  necessary  to  de- 
velop this  wealth  is  labor.  Now,  sir,  every  able 
bodied  man  who  comes  to  this  State  to  get  em- 
ployment is  worth  $2,000  to  the  State;  let  him 
come  from  England,  Ireland,  Germany,  or  from 
Eastern  States,  if  he  is  industrious  and  willing  to 
labor,  he  is  worth  to  the  State,  in  developing  its 
agricultural  and  mineral  wealth,  $2,000.  And 
are  we  to  drive  all  these  means  of  wealth  away 
from  us  ?  Where  are  we  to  get  this  means  of 
developing  our  resources  ?  Where  are  we  to  get 
the  men  to  open  our  fertile  prairies  ?  Where  are 
we  to  get  the  men  to  work  in  our  mines,  in  our 
workshops,  and  to  carry  on  our  commercial  busi- 
ness, if  it  is  not  from  the  overcrowded  Eastern 
States  and  Europe  ?  But  if  you  make  Missouri  a 
member  of  the  Southern  Confederacy,  with  but  a 
small  slave  population,  you  can  see  at  once  that 
all  this  population  is  driven  off.  Men  will  not 
come  to  come  to  Missouri  for  the  purpose  of  en- 
gaging in  these  pursuits,  when  they  know  that, 
so  far  as  our  political  power  is  concerned,  we  shall 
be  subjected  to  the  cotton  lords  of  South  Caro- 
lina and  Louisiana. 

Hence,  as  our  report  very  well  says,Missouri  as 
a  member  of  a  Southern  Confederacy  would 
be  a  non-slaveholding  State  in  a  slave  communi- 
ty, for  slaves  would  be  driven  off,  because  we  arc 
surrounded  by  a  cordon  of  free  States  into  which 
our  slaves  would  escape,  and  slavery  would  not 
exist  ten  years  after  Missouri  joined  a  Southern 
Confederacy.  As  she  stands  now,  she  is  protect- 
ed; and  I  am  Willing  to  go  as  far  as  any  living 
man  to  protect  the  institution  of  slavery  in  the 
State  of  Missouri.  I  have  no  prejudice  against 
the  institution.  I  have  been  raised  with  the  insti- 
tution, and  I  know  something  of  it.  I  am  a  slave 
owner  myself;  but  I  am  not  willing  to  sacrifice 
other  interests  to  the  slave  interest,  or  say  that  it 
is  the  peculiar  institution  of  Missouri,  when  we 
know  that  it  is  not  true.  I  am  not  willing  to  sac- 
rifice to  the  slave  interest,  the  commercial,  min- 
ing, or  other  interests  of  the  State.  I  stand  here 
not  as  a  Southern  man,  but  as  a  Missourian  and 
an  American  citizen.  Born  at  the  South,  I  think 
I  know  something  of  my  duty  to  the  South  as 
well  as  to  the  Constitution  of  my  country. — 
Bat,  further  than  this.  Look  at  the  posi- 
tion of  Missouri  in  a  geographical  point  of  view. 
Here  she  is  in  the  temperate  zone,  the  home  of 
the  white  man,  in  the  middle  of  a  great  valley, 
and,  whether  you  go  east  or  west,  you  find  simi- 
lar institutions  to  those  that  almost  surround  us. 
All  these  States  want  a  communication  through 


123 


this  State,  and  Missouri  is  the  pathway  through 
which  they  must  travel ;  and  they  will  have  that 
pathway  just  as  certain  as  we  will  have  an  outlet 
to  the  ocean.  And  more  than  this,  efforts  have 
been  made  for  the  purpose  of  connecting  the  At- 
lantic with  the  Pacific  Ocean,  by  means  of  a  rail- 
road, in  order  that  the  wealth  of  the  Indies  may 
be  poured  into  the  lap  of  this  country  of  ours. 
And  Missouri  stands  in  the  pathway  of  nations; 
over  her  soil  this  pathway  must  run,  just 
as  inevitably  as  fate.  And  do  you  suppose 
that  the  accumulated  interest  of  the  East 
and  the  West,  and  I  may  say  the  world,  will 
ever  submit  to  have  an  interdict  placed  upon 
that  pathway.  I  say,  then,  gentlemen  of  the 
Convention,  that  Missouri  cannot  go  out  of  the 
Union  if  she  would ;  and  I  think  I  know  what  I 
say  when  I  speak  it,  that  she  has  not  the 
power  to  go  out  of  the  Union   if  she  would. 

It  may  be,  an  attempt  to  take  her  out  would 
result  in  convulsion  and  civil  discord.  It  may 
be  that  an  attempt  to  take  her  out  would  result 
in  convulsion,  and  it  may  be  that  convulsion 
would  produce  revolution  and  death.  But  our 
ancestors  submitted  to  more  than  this,  and  for 
that  destiny  who  is  not  willing  to  die?  That  man 
who  does  not  know  when  to  die,  is  not  fit  to  live. 
I  say  it  may  result  in  convulsion.  Our  ancestors 
periled  all  in  the  formation  of  this  Government; 
they  pledged  their  lives,  their  fortunes  and  their 
sacred  honor,  to  maintain  the  principles  of  repub- 
lican liberty.  Are  we  willing  to  do  less  ?  Are 
our  lives  and  honor  worth  more  than  theirs? 
Certainly  not.  Could  they,  but  three  months 
ago,  or  five  months  ago,  have  seen  this  country 
in  the  pride  of  its  power— could  they  have  seen 
the  morning  light  of  science  which  but  dimly 
dawned  upon  their  vision,  shining  more  and  more 
brightly  even  unto  the  perfect  day — could  they 
have  seen  the  elements  harnessed  down  to  the 
service  and  wants  of  man — could  they  have  seen 
our  mightiest  rivers  spanned  with  the  triumphal 
arches,  and  the  distant  portions  of  the  continent 
united  by  bands  of  iron,  upon  which  are  borne 
by  a  power  not  known  to  them,  the  peaceful  car- 
avan of  commerce,  which  the  victories  of  peace 
have  brought  us — could  they  have  seen  all  these 
triumphs,  how  much  would  they  not  have  pledg- 
ed for  their  eternal  preservation?  Shall  Missouri 
do  less?  Shall  she  cast  the  bark  of  her  hopes 
upon  the  stormy  sea  of  revolution,  or  will  she  re- 
main, as  I  think  she  will,  firmly  anchored  upon 
the  rock  of  the  Constitution,  under  the  protection 
of  our  national  flag?  So  far  as  she  is  concern- 
ed, she  should  live  there  and  die  there. 

Mr.  Orr.  I  have  been  requested  to  come  for- 
ward and  take  a  stand  upon  this  platform,  in 
order  that  I  may  stand  before  the  Convention.  I 
was  raised  in  the  backwoods,  gentlemen,  where 
mirrors  or  looking  glasses,  ten  by  twelve  inches 
square  are  considered  large,  and  having  been  in- 


vited, in  common  with  the  balance  of  this  assem- 
bly, to  participate  in  the  hospitalities  of  gentle- 
men of  St.  Louis — on  one  occasion,  after  a  num- 
ber of  us  had  collected,  we  were  invited  into  a 
certain  room  in  which  there  were  mirrors  about 
the  size  of  that  door,  and  a  little  gentlemen  whose 
name  would  not  be  worth  anything  to  you  on  the 
present  occasion,  steped  up  by  my  side,  and  said 
he,  "I  thought  I  saw  you  in  the  other  room."  I 
looked  around  and  saw  a  very  good  looking  man 
about  my  size,  standing  in  the  other  room,  and, 
turning  to  him,  I  said  "I  believe  you  are  in  the 
other  room,  too."  Then,  for  the  first  time 
in  my  life,  did  I  enjoy  the  luxury  of  view- 
ing myself  at  full  size  ;  and  I  have  no 
doubt  that  the  exhibition  I  made  of  myself 
in  the  canvass  last  summer,  caused  me  to 
receive  many  votes  I  would  not  otherwise  have 
received. 

Gentlemen  of  the  Convention,  you  and  I  are 
called  here  by  the  people  of  Missouri,  to 
take  into  consideration  the  relations  existing  be- 
tween the  State  of  Missouri  and  the  Federal  Gov- 
ernment. We  are  here  as  component  parts  of 
the  best  Government  in  the  world — a  Govern- 
ment in  which  the  rich  man  and  the  poor  man 
have  life,  liberty,  character  and  property,  better 
secured  than  in  any  other  Government  that  has 
yet  been  made— a  Government  in  which  the  rich 
man's  son  and  the  poor  man's  son,  and,in  fact,  all, 
are  better  fed  and  better  clothed  and  better  edu- 
cated, than  in  any  other  spot  on  this  green  globe. 
We  are  here  the  proud  recipients  of  a  Govern- 
ment possessing  every  climate  and  every  variety 
of  soil.,  with  all  these  blessings,  with  everything 
that  is  calculated  to  make  men  happy  upon  earth, 
and  with  all  these  liberal  institutions  under  which 
we  have  been  reared,  and  yet  we  see  men  coming 
up  here  and  deploring  the  condition  of  affairs 
that  now  surround  us.  Hence,  it  will  become  ne- 
cessary to  spend  a  few  minutes  in  giving  what  I 
consider  to  be  the  cause  of  this  lamentable  state 
of  affairs.  We  have  different  views  from  differ- 
ent gentlemen,  as  to  what  has  caused  all  this. 
You  hear  some  of  them  declaring  that  it  is  because 
a  sectional  man,  with  a  sectional  platform,  has 
been  elected  to  the  highest  office  in  the  gift  of  the 
people,  and  we  hear  others  say  it  is  because  of 
certain  personal  liberty  bills  that  have  been 
passed  in  Northern  States,  which  set  at  defiance 
the  Constitution  and  the  laws  of  the  country. 
Let  me  tell  you  what  I  think  it  is.  Living  in  a 
country,  as  we  do,  where  the  rich  man's  son  and 
the  poor  man's  son  have  like  aspirations  to  at- 
tain, at  least,  the  highest  offices  in  the  gift  of  the 
people,  partyism  has,  as  a  consequence,  been 
growing  up  in  our  country  from  its  earliest  histo- 
ry. There  have  been  various  party  divisions,  and 
for  the  last  few  years  party  drill  has  become  so 
well  understood,  that  a  few  demagogues  and 
wire-workers  and  office-seekers  have  been  mana- 


124 


ging  this  country,  while  the  masses  have  been  at- 
tending to  their  own  business,  and  paying  too 
little  attention  to  the  vital  interests  and  institu-  ; 
tions  of  the  country.    Men  have  held  conventions,  ] 
have  affirmed  their  action  as  the  will  of  the  peo-  \ 
pie,  when  the  people  were  not  consulted  about  it;  ; 
they  have  placed  in  nomination  for  high  offices 
individuals  who  have  never  done  anything  to  en-  j 
title  them  to  such  a  position;  and  when  you  and 
I  have  been  plowing,  and  working  on  Lincoln  • 
platforms — making   rails — such    individuals    as  ; 
these     would     carry     out     their     plans     and  j 
declare  that   we    were    disorganizes ;    that   we  ; 
were     bolters,     going    to     destroy   the   Whig  j 
or  Democratic  party,   unless    we    acquiesced  in  | 
their  action,  and,  rather  than  be  called  by  these  \ 
names,    we   have   marched  blindly  up   to   the  j 
ballot-box  against   our   better  judgment,  until 
merit,  qualification,  integrity  and  honesty  have  j 
been  left  out  of  view  almost  entirely,  and  men  j 
have  been  elected  to  the  highest  offices  in  the  ! 
country  because  of  availability  and  regardless  of  j 
ability.    Gentlemen,  I  hope  that  we  will  survive  | 
this,  and  when  we  shall  have  done  it,  then  I  see 
a  disposition  in  the  American  people  to  take 
their  own  cause  into  their  hands,  and  henceforth 
conduct  things  upon  the  old  Jeffersonian  princi- 
ple,   and  select  men  because  they   are   honest 
and  qualified,  and  who  will  do  what  they  say, 
and  not  because  they  belong  to  the  dominant 
party.    Why,  sir,  when  this  Convention  bill  was 
passed,  the  people  were  called  upon  to  select  men, 
and  what  have  they  done?    Bad  as  they  may 
have  failed  in  some  instances,  they  have  done 
their  best,  and  selected  the  best  men  they  could ; 
and  when  they  failed  it  was  because  they  were 
deceived.    I  have  been  what  is  called  an  Opposi- 
tion man  in  Southwest  Missouri,  because  I  have 
been  acting  against  the  Democratic  party;  and 
when  I  became  a  candidate,  together  with  two  old 
Whigs,  everything  possible  was  done  to  make  the 
people  vote  against  us  on  the  ground  of  partyism; 
but  old  white-haired  Democrats,  who  have  hither- 
to never  failed  to  vote  the  Democratic  ticket,  dis- 
regarded this   appeal,  and  voted  for  men  who 
they  thought  would  act  for  the  best  interests  of 
the  country.    Permit  me  to  say  here,  that  I  trav- 
ersed the  State  of  Missouri  last  summer  more 
than  any  other  man,  and  when  these  difficulties 
were  coming  upon  us,  and  without  any  character 
as  an  orator,  without  being  entitled  to  anything 
of  the  kind,  yet  on  every  occasion,  where  I  had 
an  appointment,  I  saw  old  white-haired  men,  who 
had  never  before  taken  any  particular  interest  in 
these  matters,  rushing  out  to  hear  what  might  be 
said,  and  to  see  how  they  might  act  for  the  best 
interests  of  their  country.    And  I  now  believe 
that  when  we  are  again  called  on  to  vote,  it  will 
be  for   Constitutional  Union-loving  men,  disre- 
garding former  political  ties.      Notwithstanding 
you  hear  men  talking  dolefully  about  the  destruc- 


tion of  the  Government,  I  for  one  do  not  believe 
it  is  going  to  be  destroyed.  I  believe  that  the 
people  of  Missouri,  and  of  the  whole  country, 
will  stand  together,  to  hand  down  the  richest 
boon  ever  transmitted,  untarnished,  to  posterity. 
I  have  been  trying  to  get  the  floor  since  this 
amendment  to  the  fifth  resolution  of  the  majority 
report  has  been  offered,  for  the  purpose  of 
speaking  to  it,  and  I  had  intended  to  confine 
my  remarks  as  closely  as  I  could  to  the 
subject  before  the  Convention.  But,  since 
the  debate  has  taken  the  course  it  has,  I 
shall  now,  as  other  gentlemen  have  done,  speak 
to  the  report.  I  will  try  not  to  be  tedious,  and  I 
will  promise  one  thing,  that  whether  I  will  quit 
when  I  am  done  or  not,  I  will  quit  when  I  think 
I  am  done.  [Laughter.]  We  are  called  here  to 
express  our  several  views  in  regard  to  the  rela- 
tions that  we  bear  to  the  General  Government, 
and  the  relations  that  exist  between  the  State  of 
Missouri  and  other  States,  and  whether  we  have 
the  right  to  secede,  or  whether  the  General  Gov- 
ernment has  the  right  to  coerce  a  State  back  if  she 
undertakes  to  go  out,  as  well  as  various  other 
subjects  which  have  been  brought  before  the 
Convention. 

Now,  what  are  the  relations  of  the  General  Gov- 
ernment? It  has  been  argued  before  you  that  a 
State  has  the  right  to  secede;  it  has  been  argued 
by  others  that  it  has  no  such  right.  Now,  before 
I  go  into  an  investigation  of  the  subject, it  will  be 
well  enough  for  us  to  consider  for  a  moment 
whether  those  States  that  have  gone  out,  are 
really  out  of  the  Union  or  in  it.  If  they 
are  a  separate  confederacy — an  independent 
republic — our  duties  towards  this  people  will 
be  different  from  what  they  would  be  if  they 
are  part  and  parcel  of  this  Government. 
I  think  I  can  satisfy  any  reasonable  man 
as  to  whether  they  are  out  or  in.  I  take  the  position 
that  they  are  in— that  they  are  members  of  this 
Union  to-day,  and  that  they  have  no  right  to  sep- 
arate their  connection  with  the  Governfjont. — 
How  will  I  prove  it  ?  By  submitting  a  proposi- 
tion. The  Constitution  of  the  United  States  has 
made  a  provision  for  receiving  new  States  into 
the  Confederacy.  Now  if  Georgia,  South  Caroli- 
na, Alabama,  Mississippi,  Florida  and  Texas,  are 
out  of  the  Confederacy  and  they  take  a  notion  to 
come  back,  would  it  not  take  another  organic  act 
of  the  General  Government  to  admit  them 
again,  as  it  takes  two  to  make  a  contract. — 
If  they  are  in,  although  they  may  be  derelict  in 
this  duty— although  they  may  be  in  open  rebel- 
ion  against  the  Government,  and  though  they 
may  stay  out,  for  years,  yet,  when  they  get 
ready  to  do  so,  have  they  the  right  to  elect  Rep- 
resentatives and  Senators  to  Congress,  and  ask 
odds  of  nobody  as  to  whether  they  can  come  in 
or  not?  If  they  have,  I  ask  you  in  the  name  of 
common  sense,  whether  they  are  not  part  and 


125 


parcel  of  the  General  Government  ?    And  further, 
suppose  we  get  a  telegraphic  dispatch  this  evening 
that  Great  Britian  has  invaded  the   soil  of  South 
Carolina,  is  there  a  gentleman  in  this  Convention 
the  patriotism  in  whose  bosom  would  not  in  a 
moment  he  kindled  and  impel  him  to  go  there  and 
defend  our  sister  State  ?  If  there  is  a  man  so  mean 
and  so  low  as  not  to  go  there,  then  there  is  a 
General  Government  and  a  General  Constitution 
that  you  and  I  have  taken  an  oath  to  support, 
that  will  make  it  your  duty  to  go  there,  whether 
you  want  to  go  or  not.    Then  I  come  to  the  con- 
clusion that  if  we  have  to  protect  her,  and  admit 
her  Senators  and  Representatives  into  the  gene- 
ral Congress  of  the  United  States,  that  they  are 
yet  in.  Although  they  are  doing  wrong,  although 
they  may  be  acting  rebellious  and  treacherous  to 
the  best  Government  in  the  world,  yet  they  are 
members  of  it,  and  have  a  right  to  all  the  bless- 
ings and  privileges  that  you  and  I  have,  whenever 
they  choose  to  take  them.    It  is  said,  though, 
that  they  have  the  right  to  go  out,  and  you  hear 
it  said  by  some  gentlemen  that  they  have  gone 
out,  and  that  they  are  no  longer  members  of  the 
Confederacy ;  and  one  gentleman,  yesterday  even- 
ing, argued  the  legal  right  to  secede,  and  others 
take  the  same  position,  and  I  think  they  must  have 
read  the  Inaugural  Address  of  Maj.  Claib.  Jack- 
son, for  in  that  address  he  takes  this  position  and 
says :  "I  will  not  stop  to  argue  whether  they  have 
the  right  to  secede,  but  yet  they  have  seceded." 
And  gentlemen  upon  this  floor  say  they  have  se- 
ceded, and  that  they  will  not  stop  to  talk  about 
constitutional  right.    They  remind  me  of  a  mag- 
istrate I  heard  of  in  the  State  of  Illinois  once.    I 
have  never  been  there,  and  I  have  never  made  a 
track  in  a  free  State  in  my  life;  but  in  the  first 
settlement  of  Illinois,  I  understand  the  jurisdic- 
tion of  a  magistrate  extended  to  $20.     On  one 
occasion  a  couple  of  litigants  appeared  before 
the  magistrate,  and  one  of  them  obtained  judg- 
ment  for   $30.    The   defendant    says,    "Why, 
Squire,  you  can't  give  judgment  against  me  for 
$30."    The  magistrate  kept  on   writing.    The 
defendant   again    said,  "Squire,  you    have    no 
authority   to   give  judgment  to  that  amount." 
Still  the  magistrate  continued  writing,  and  with- 
out looking  up,  said,  "  Don't  you  see  I  have 
done   it?"      [Laughter.]      It     makes    no    odds 
whether  they  have  the  right  to  secede,  but  they 
have  seceded!    This  is  enough  for  you  and  me  to 
know.    It  is  a  knock  down  argument  that  no 
man  can  get  over. 

Some  gentlemen  who  addressed  you  are  great 
sticklers  for  the  words  "Compact"  or  "Confedera- 
tion." They  won't  give  the  Government  the  dig- 
nity of  calling  it  a  Government,  but  they  will  call 
it  a  compact,  a  confederation.  It  is  no  such 
thing.  We  had  a  confederation  before  we  made 
this  Government;  we  had  a  Union  before  this 
Government  was  made  and  before  this  Constitu- 


tion was  framed,  and  that  was   called  a  Confed- 
eration— the  old  Confederation  of  States. 

But  this  is  said  to  be  a  partnership — a  partner- 
ship that  any  party  has  the  right  to  dissolve  at  any 
time.  The  Abolitionists  of  the  North  have  passed 
Personal  Liberty  bills,  and  violated  the  Constitu- 
tion ot  the  country,  and  it  is  said  we  are  no  longer 
bound  to  the  original  agreement,  and  we  take  the 
liberty  of  dissolving  the  partnership  at  pleasure. 
Let  us  examine  that  for  a  moment.  Take  a  law 
partnership  for  instance,  and  suppose  one  of  the 
partners  has  failed  to  comply  with  the  articles  of 
partnership,  has  the  other  partner  the  right  to 
dissolve  it  at  pleasure.  Never.  He  has  the  right 
to  make  an  equitable  case  and  have  the  part- 
nership wound  up  in  a  proper  manner,  but  he 
has  no  right  to  take  it  into  his  own  hands  and 
dissolve  the  partnership  at  pleasure.  To  illustrate 
still  further,  suppose  A.  and  B.  are  partners  in 
trade  in  St.  Louis,  and  that  they  have  accumula- 
ted $100,000,  $50,000  of  which  is  in  money,  and 
the  balance  in  a  stock  of  goods,  not  insured;  on 
a  certain  occasion  the  house  gets  on  fire,  and  A. 
being  near,  and  seeing  that  he  can  save  the  money, 
safe  and  sound,  and  knowing  where  it  is  put 
away,  rushes  in  just  in  time  to  obtain  it,  and  down 
comes  the  house,  and  away  goes  the  goods.  B. 
comes  up  directly,  and  congratulates  A.  that  he 
has  got  enough  to  save  them.  I  am  glad,  he  says, 
since  it  is  no  better, that  it  is  no  worse.  We  can  take 
the  $50,000  and  start  in  business  anew.  But,  oh ! 
says  the  other  partner,  you  are  not  in  time;  just 
at  the  time  I  came  here  I  took  a  netion  to  dissolve 
partnership,  and  took  out  what  belonged  to  me. 
[Laughter.]  South  Carolina  took  a  notion  that 
she  would  dissolve  partnership  and  take  all  the 
forts  and  treasury,  without  counseling  with  the 
other  States  whether  they  would  agree  to  it  or 
not.  She  got  off  with  her  part,  and  now  we 
may  help  ourselves.  What  would  B.  have 
said  to  this  man?  Would  he  have  taken  a  club 
and  coerced  him  to  his  duty?  No.  He  would 
have  said :  you  and  I  have  built  up  a  character 
and  made  a  respectable  show  by  honesty  and  in- 
tegrity, and  now  let  us  continue;  I  ask  you  in  the 
name  of  common  sense  and  justice  not  to  dis- 
grace yourself  and  ruin  me  forever,  but  come  and 
divide  the  $50,000  and  let  us  go  on,  and  with 
our  character  at  home  and  abroad  we  can 
extend  our  credit,  if  we  only  act  like  men. 
Suppose  B.  should  say  in  reply:  "No,  sir, 
I  dissolved  the  partnership,  and  I  had  a 
right  to  do  so;  you  were  not  here  to  get  your 
share,  and  you  can  get  none  of  mine."  What 
do  you  guess  he  would  do  ?  He  would  go  to  the 
Clerk's  office  and  obtain  a  writ— not  a  musket 
and  bayonet — but  a  civil  writ,  and  commence 
a  civil  process  to  obtain  his  part  according 
to  the  laws  of  the  Government.  "  Oh,  yes,  I 
understand  you,  but  I  say  no,— you 
are   a   coercionist."    I    stand  in  favor   of  the 


126 


Constitution  of  my  country,  the  Union  of  tho 
States,  and  the  enforcement  of  the  laws,  and  if 
this  is  coercion,  you  can  have  it  for  what  it  is 
worth.  What  kind  of  a  position  would  we  be 
placed  in  if  we  could  not  do  it?  The  strong  men 
would  rule  the  weak.  If  we  cannot  coerce  by  civ- 
il process,  I  want  the  Government  broken  up.  It 
is  not  Avorth  anything.  Its  force  is  gone.  And 
we  might  as  well  be  without  any  Government  at 
all.  But  I  am  one  of  the  last  men  who  desire  to 
send  an  army  into  the  South  or  to  send  civil  war 
into  the  country.  But  we  are  asked  how  we  are 
going  to  enforce  constitutional  law  when  the  offi- 
cers have  all  resigned?  We  are  not  going  to  do 
it  at  all,  if  there  is  no  one  to  do  it.  How  would 
Judge  Breckinridge,  who  is  Circuit  Judge  of  this 
District,  have  the  laws  enforced  here  if  men  were 
all  to  become  so  corrupt  that  Grand  Jurors  would 
not  find  bills  against  murderers  ?  He  could  not 
do  at  it  all.  When  the  people  become  so  cor- 
rupt that  their  oaths  to  the  Consti- 
tution, and  the  blessings  of  this 
Government  will  not  force  them  to  do  their  duty, 
I  suppose  they  would  suffer  as  well  as  we.  We 
will  not  send  an  army  to  force  them  to  elect  offi- 
cers, but  we  will  hold  still,  and  contend  for  bless- 
ings that  you  and  I  can  have  in  this  country  as 
long  as  Missouri  has  the  honesty  to  enforce  the 
laws.  They  will  probably  want  the  laws  enforced 
as  soon  as  we  will. 

There  are  men  here  to-day,  gentlemen,  in  this 
city,  from  Georgia  and  Mississippi,  and  they 
say  that  the  people  of  their  country  are  tired 
of  the  reign  of  terror  there  —  that  the  people 
intend  to  hold  on,  until  election  comes  off, 
and  then  they  will  try  and  vote  down  seces- 
sion and  revolutionary  movements,  and  if  they 
cannot  do  that  the  time  will  come  when  they  will 
walk  over  the  dead  bodies  of  these  demagogues, 
if  need  be,  and  come  back  into  the  Union.  The 
people  have  not  been  consulted  in  these  Southern 
States  about  going  out,  but  these  leaders  and  de- 
magogues,  (I  call  things  by  their  right  names,)  the 
traitors  have  taken  them  out  without  consulting 
the  masses  of  the  people.  I  know  some  gentlemen 
say  that  I  ought  not  to  use  these  harsh  terms  to 
the  people  of  the  South,  nor  will  I  to  the  masses. 
There  have  been  parties  in  this  country,  the 
masses  of  which  intended  to  do  right.  The 
people  of  the  South  are  patriotic  and 
Union-loving  as  you  and  I,  but  they 
have  been  misguided,  many  of  them,  and 
the  balance  have  been  forced  into  submission.  I 
say  here,  to-day,  without  fear  of  successful  con- 
tradiction, that  if  every  officer  of  the  United  States 
were  to  resign,  if  every  member  of  Congress  would 
resign  to-day,  and  let  the  election  come  off  in 
thirty  days  from  this  time,  and  let  Congress  meet 
in  sixty  days  from  to-day,  they  would  not  be 
there  ten  days  before  every  difficulty  would  be 
adjusted.  The  people  of  the  North  and  South  want 


to  do  what  is  right,  and  they  will  do  it  when  they 
get  a  chance. 

But  we  are  told  that  Lincoln  has  been  elected 
as  a  sectional  candidate,  and  that  his  people  are 
on  a  sectional  platform.  Who  are  his  people? 
He  was  elected  by  a  little  more  than  one-third  of 
the  people  of  the  United  States,  and  there  were 
several  circumstances  besides  the  Chicago  plat- 
form, that  aided  his  election.  The  people  of 
Missouri,  and  the  people  of  the  Southern  States 
aided  in  electing  Lincoln.  Not  directly.  They 
did  not  vote  for  him,  but  by  voting  for  the  three 
other  candidates  they  assisted  in  his  election. 
There  were  100,000  votes  thrown  for  Lincoln  up- 
on the  tariff  question,  and  many  voted  for  him 
because  of  the  corruption  that  had  crept  into  the 
high  places  of  this  Government,  and  they  saw 
no  other  chance  of  defeating  the  party 
in  power.  When  I  say  tho  present  party,  I  want 
to  be  understood  I  do  not  say  the  Democratic 
party  is  corrupt,  but  it  has  been  led  by  corrupt 
men.  Corrupt  men  have  held  offices,  and  rather 
than  give  them  up  they  would  see  the  Govern- 
ment crumbled  into  dust.  I  believe  if  Lincoln 
was  to  run  to-morrow  against  Bell  or  Douglas  he 
would  be  beaten.  Why  do  I  come  to  this  conclu- 
sion. The  North  polled  nearly  400,000  more  votes 
against  Lincoln  than  the  South.  We  talk  about 
breaking  loose  from  a  body  of  men  who  by  edu- 
cation have  been  prejudiced  and  misled,  but  yet 
we  find  that  in  the  North  there  were  nearly  400,- 
000  more  against  Lincoln  than  we  had  against 
him.  Then,  when  we  cut  ourselves  loose  from 
that  element,  we  make  them  enemies  by  seces- 
sion, and  foreigners. 

And  what  else  have  we  done  ?  We  have  de- 
stroyed the  commerce  of  the  United  States. 
What  kind  of  a  Union  would  the  North  be  by  it- 
self, commercially?  What  kind  of  a  Union 
would  the  South  be?  Our  interests  are  one — we 
have  one  destiny.  The  God  of  Nature  himself 
so  arranged  it,  that  so  far  as  our  wants  were  con- 
cerned, our  wants  should  be  supplied.  The 
South  furnishes  its  cotton,  its  rice,  and  its 
sugar  to  the  North,  and  receives  in  return 
the  wheat  and  the  corn,  and  all  kinds  of 
produce.  But  cut  the  Government  in  two, 
and  what  do  you  see?  Every  mule  that  we  raise 
here  will  have  to  be  taxed — a  portion  of  every 
mule  and  every  hog,  and  whatever  else  we  have 
will  have  to  be  taken  to  support  this  government 
in  the  South.  And  when  they  send  their  cotton 
to  us,  instead  of  getting  the  full  price  for  it  as 
now,  they  will  have  to  have  a  poition  taken  off  to 
help  protect  the  tariff  revenue  of  the  Northern 
confederacy.  Now,  sir,  we  are  groaning  under 
the  burthens  of  taxation  as  one  people,  and  does 
any  man  of  sense  suppose  that  we  could  support 
two  governments,  when  we  are  now  complain- 
ing at  the  cost  of  supporting  one.  This  country 
was  and  is  destined  to  be  one  great  government. 


127 


You  hear  men  make  beautiful  appeals  to  the 
stars  and  stripes,  you  will  hear  them  say  many 
pretty  things,  but  I  want  you  to  notice  from 
this  time  on,  that  the  man  who  says  the  most 
pretty  things  at  the  start,  is  just  fixing  for  seces- 
sion before  he  gets  through.  [Laughter.]  It 
would  be  poor  consolation  to  my  constituents  for 
me  to  express  my  devotion  to  the  Union  and 
the  Stars  and  Stripes,  and  then  give  such  votes  as 
would  stab  the  country  to  death.  When  a  Doctor 
comes  to  see  a  patient,  he  talks  learnedly  about 
the  disease,  and  feels  the  pulse  or  examines  the 
tongue,  and  makes  you  believe  he  knows  all  about 
the  system,  but  when  he  comes  to  administer  cal- 
omel, if  he  happens  togive  him  strychnine  or  ar- 
senic, I  suppose  the  high-toned  terms  the  Doctor 
used  would  not  prevent  the  laws  of  nature  taking 
off  the  patient.  Now,  sir,  I  want  to  allude  a  moment 
to  the  resolution,  and  the  remarks  I  make  will  be 
scattering,  because  so  many  able  gentlemen  have 
preceded  me. 

The  gentleman  from  Clay,  [Mr.  Moss,]  who  I 
will  do  the  honor  to  say  is  a  devoted  Union  man, 
has  offered  an  amendment  to  the  resolution  which 
implies  a  meaning  not  contemplated  by  the  origi- 
nal resolution.  Let  us  examinewhere  this  amend- 
ment would  lead  us.  I  think  its  doctrines  would 
ultimately  destroy  the  Government.  I  think  we 
have  not  the  right  to  enact  a  law  of  this  character. 
Take  up  tho  Constitution  of  the  United  States, 
and  you  see  that  Congress  has  the  power  to  levy 
and  collect  taxes,  declare  war  and  coin  money, 
and  do  various  other  things  that  the  State  of  Mis- 
souri cannot  do  at  all.  You  and  I  are  subject  to 
a  war-making  power,  that  Missouri  has  nothing 
to  do  with,  except  through  her  Representatives  in 
Congress,  and  you  and  I  cannot  help  ourselves, 
and  tho  State  of  Missouri  does  not  help  herself, 
unless  she  does  it  by  open  rebellion.  Then  she  is 
not  sovereign,  because  we  have  a  law  over  us. 
Missouri  cannot  pass  a  bankrupt  law,  but  the 
United  States  did,  and  all  the  people  were 
subject  to  it.  The  same  day  that  Missouri 
became  a  State  she  became  a  portion  of  the 
United  States,  and  I  believe  when  Missouri  ac- 
cepted that  organic  act  she  said :  "This  act  shall 
not  be  repealed  without  the  consent  of  Congress." 
Then  we  are  not  sovereign.  Let  us  examine  how 
she  would  place  herself  by  the  adoption  of  this 
amendment.  There  have  been  a  good  many  dif- 
ficulties supposed.  Now,  suppose  these  States 
that  have  gone  off  to  maintain  their  independ- 
ence^— suppose  all  the  powers  of  Congress  were 
brought  to  bear  in  favor  of  maintaining  the  in- 
dependence of  this  Confederacy — suppose  they 
should  come  here  and  invade  Missouri  for  the 
purpose  of  conquest — I  suppose  we  should  be 
compelled  by  this  amendment  to  stand  still,  with 
folded  arm'?,  andAvhen  we  see  our  houses  on  fire, 
and  our  neighbors  swinging  to  a  limb,  and  our 
wives  and  children  massacred  bv  these  warriors 


from  the  South,  we  dare  not  raise  our  hand.  Is  not 
that  the  position  we  would  be  placed  in  by  this 
amendment?  Suppose  the  citizens  of  Chicago — 
and  I  believe  they  are  the  most  noted  people  of 
the  North— should  come  here  and  steal  our  last 
nigger,  and  then  get  Illinois  to  secede,  and 
we  were  to  call  upon  the  General  Gov- 
ernment for  aid — and  I  hope  that  we  have 
got  a  General  Government  that  we  can 
call  upon,  for  we  have  not  had  heretofore 
in  this  respect— for  I  remember,  last 
year,  a  gentleman  who  is  a  member  of  this  Con- 
vention, tried  the  operation;  He  had  a  negro 
who  run  off  to  Chicago,  where  he  found  him,  but 
he  was  rescued  by  free  niggers,  and  he  then  ap- 
plied to  the  General  Government  to  send  troops, 
as  Fillmore  sent  troops  to  Boston;  but  his  request 
was  received  with  silent  contempt.  And  here  let 
me  say  that,  for  the  last  eight  years,  if  the  Presi- 
dents of  the  United  States  had  enforced  the  Fu- 
gitive Slave  Law  in  the  North,  there  would  have 
been  none  of  this  difficulty  in  the  South  to-day. 
All  we  lack  here  to-day,  to  constitute  us  the  best 
government  on  earth,  is  to  have  a  President  who 
has  nerve  enough  to  enforce  the  laws  North  and 
South. 

Well,  suppose  there  is  a  right  to  secede,  is  it 
our  interest  or  duty  to  do  so  ?  You  have  heard 
various  estimates  as  to  how  much  negro  property 
Missouri  has.  You  have  heard  that  she  is  sur- 
rounded by  three  free  States,  who  would  be  back- 
ed by  a  hostile  government  in  case  of  secession. 
What  kind  of  a  predicament  would  we  then  be  in 
in  regard  to  our  negro  property?  Notwithstand- 
ing, I  could  get  good  certificates  from  home,  and 
from  great  men  all  through  the  State  of  Mis- 
souri, that  I  am  a  respectablo  Black  Republican 
in  good  standing,  because  I  last  summer  declared 
and  renew  the  declaration  here  to-day,  that  I  am 
ready  to  aid  Mr.  Lincoln  in  the  discharge  of 
any  constitutional  duty,  I  say  to  you,  I  am  in 
favor  of  the  institutions  of  my  country.  I  am 
in  favor  of  the  institution  of  slavery,  and  I  say  to 
you  here  to-day  that  the  institution  of  slavery 
has  advanced  this  great  Government  far  ahead  of 
what  it  would  have  been  had  it  not  been  for  sla- 
very. I  believe,  before  God,  that  it  is  calculated 
as  a  blessing  for  black  and  white  men  both,  when 
properly  conducted.  Slave  labor  is  adapted  to 
the  wants  of  the  South.  It  would  continue  to  be 
a  blessing  if  we  would  only  quit  this  agita- 
tion on  the  subject.  But  if  we  cut  our  connec- 
tion with  the  General  Government,  let  the 
interest  in  slave  property  be  45  or  $100,000,000,  it 
will  be  wiped  out  within  one  year  after  such  a 
severance.  Then  it  is  not  for  the  interest  of 
Missouri  to  sever  her  connection  with  the  Federal 
Government.  The  only  salvation  for  the  institu- 
tion of  slavery,  is  her  adherance  to  the  Govern- 
ment that  proects  slavery.  Now,  if  they  go  to  Illi- 
nois, we  get  some  of  them  back;  but  in  case  of 


128 


secession,  we  get  none.  Then,  as  to  our  duty : 
there  is  something  to  attend  to  in  this  respect  as 
well  as  our  interest.  I  will  illustrate,  and  in  doing 
so,  will  show  the  point  of  coercion.  Suppose  a 
company  of  these  delegates  before  me  associate 
themselves  together  for  the  purpose  of  crossing 
the  plains  to  California.  They  start,  and  on  the 
way  encounter  difficulties  and  dangers,  but  they 
pledge  themselves  to  stand  by  each  other.  By 
and  by  the  dangers  become  so  great  that  a  por- 
tion begin  to  feel  unsafe.  But  just  about  this 
time  there  comes  along  a  company  of  gam- 
blers, drunkards  and  robbers,  that  have  numbers 
sufficient  to  protect  themselves  against  the  In- 
dians and  the  bad  white  men.  Some  of  the  dis- 
affected ones  in  the  other  party  see  this,  and  associ- 
ate themselves  with  the  gamblers  and  robbers, 
without  consulting  the  balance,  and  any  at- 
tempt to  get  them  back  would  be  met  by  the 
declaration  that  they  had  the  right  to  go. 
Presently  things  are  carried  to  such  an  extent 
that  by-and-by  the  other  party  is  coerced  entirely 
and  compelled  to  join  this  party  of  gamblers  and 
drunkards  and  robbers.  Just  so  the  South  are 
acting  to-day.  They  claim  the  right  to  violate 
these  pledges,  and  now  invite  us  to  go  with  them; 
but  I  am  in  hopes  a  report  will  soon  be  forth- 
coming that  we  can't  trade.  They  invite  us  to 
do  what?  To  abolish  our  slave  property  as 
Missouri,  Kentucky,  and  Virginia  will  be  forced 
to  if  they  join  a  Southern  Confederacy.  They 
desire  us  to  do  this  in  order  that  their  own  slave 
property  may  be  protected.  Now,  are  you  willing 
to  be  forced  to  do  that  which  you  do  not  believe 
is  right?  I,  for  one,  intend  to  stand  by  the 
Union  as  long  as  there  is  a  solitary  State  that 
will  stay  with  Missouri.  I  have  been  told  that 
Missouri  and  other  States,  by  so  doing,  would 
have  to  pay  the  public  debt.  I  believe  there  is 
an  intimation  of  repudiation.  I  see,  in  the 
Southern  Congress,  that  if  Lincoln  will  treat 
with  them,  and  make  an  equal  division,  they 
will  pay  their  portion  of  the  public  debt,  but  if 
he  don't  do  it,  they  won't  pay  any  of  it.  As 
long  as  Missouri  or  any  other  State  shall  re- 
main in  the  Union,  I  am  willing  they  should  as- 
sume the  public  debt.  I  know  they  will  be  able 
to  pay  it  eventually,  as  well  as  I  know  I  shall  be 
able  to  pay  all  the  debts  I  owe  the  citizens  of 
Green  county— and,  so  help  me  God,  if  I  never 
pay  my  debts,  I  never  will  deny  them ;  I  will  give 
a  new  note  as  long  as  they  want  it.  And  so  long 
as  Missouri  stands  in  the  Union,  I  will  pledge 
myself  that  every  dollar  of  the  public  debt  shall 
be  paid. 

I  want  you  to  understand  that  I  expect  to  live 
and  die  a  citizen  of  the  United  States.  I  do  not 
expect  to  ever  go  out  of  this  Union  alive.  What 
great  use  would  we  be  to  the  South?  We  should 
have  a  slave  code  upon  our  statute  books  and  not 
a  slnve  in  the  State.    We  should  stand  here  sim- 


ply occupying  the  high  position  that  the  cotton 
bales  did  for  General  Jackson— to  stop  the  bullets 
of  Northern  men  from  going  down  South  and  hurt- 
ing somebody.  [Laughter.]  And  that  is  what  they 
want.    They  know,  sir,  that  Virginia,  Kentucky, 
Tennessee  and  Missouri  united,  would  be  tolerably 
hard  to  get  over,  and  if  a  Northern  Confederacy 
undertook  to  travel  over  these  States  it  would  be 
some  time  before  the  wives  and  children  of  th  e 
South  would  be  put   to  flight  by  the  sword; 
hence,  they  want  us  to  stand  here  as  a  breast- 
work.   I  am  unwilling  to  do  it.    "  Oh,  you  are 
going  with  the  North,  are  you?"    No,  sir.    I  am 
not  going  trotting  about  with  Missouri  for  any- 
body.   I  am  going  to  stay  right  here,  where  the 
God  of  Nature  placed  us,  and  so  far  as  my  influ- 
ence is  concerned,  neither  go  North  nor  South. 
I  look  forward  to  the  time  when  the  present 
wandering  States  will  come  back,  having  seen 
the  error  of  their  way  and  without  being  whipped 
back    "Oh  then  if  I  am  for  the  Constitution  and 
the  enforcement  of  the  laws,  I  am  a  coercionist." 
No,  sir.     To  illustrate  my  character  in  regard  to 
whipping,  though  it  may  not  be  a  great  honor 
to  myself— I  had  a  couple  of  little  boys  of  fourteen 
to  sixteen  years  old,  who  ran  away  from  me  one 
day,  and  then  it  was,  I  felt  as  I  never  had  felt 
before.    But  my  family  was  not  dissolved.     I 
still  had  a  family.  The  balance  of  us  did  not  run 
away.    Before  night,  one  of  them  came  back. 
I  put   him   on    a   horse    next    morning,    and 
gave   him    another   horse,   and     some    money 
to  pay  his  expenses,  and  sent  him  after  his  broth- 
er, and  when  they  both  came  back,  in  place  of 
shedding  blood,  I  shed  tears.    So  I  would  deal  to- 
wards these  Southern  States.  -Although  they  have 
done  wrong,  although  they  have  acted  badly  to 
the  Border  States,  yet  I  hope  to  see  them  come 
back  after  their  pride  is  out,  in  order  that  this  dif- 
ficulty  may   be   settled,  and   this    Government 
continue  the  best  on  earth.    Now,  I  desire  to  al- 
lude to  certain  arguments  that  have  been  made 
here.    The  gentleman  from  Platte,  I  believe,  made 
a  speech,  in  which  he  takes  the  liberty  to  say  that 
if  force  is  employed,  all  hope    of  settlement  is 
gone.    He  then  talks  beautifully  and  feelingly, 
like  an  individual  without  hope, 

"  If  hope  be  dead,  why  seek  to  live  ? 

What  else  beside  has  earth  to  give  ? 
Life,  love,  and  youth  and  beauty,  too, 

If  hope  be  dead,  say,  what  are  you?" 

I  do  not  understand,  however,  that  the  5th  reso- 
lttion  says  all  hope  is  lost.  I  have  hope  that  there 
will  be  a  settlement,  without  a  fight;  but  if  there 
be  a  fight,  it  will  be  such  an  one  as  history  does 
not  talk  about.  But  I  yet  think  the  difficulty  will 
be  settled  and  that  this  will  yet  be  a  nation 
with  a  republican  form  of  government, 
But  if  the  Government  cannot  be  saved,  then  the 
last  hope  of  the  capability  of  man's  governing 
himself  is  destroyed.    And  I  suppose  it  will  be  a 


129 


great  while  before  another  nation  can  be  found 
willing  to  set  themselves  up  to  be  shot  at  in  order 
to  try  the  experiment.  Then  I  believe  the  gentle- 
man from  Cole  made  a  few  remarks,  and  I  briefly 
notice  one  remark  he  made.  He  says  if  we 
plunge  into  war,  we  should  be  required  to  stain 
our  hands  in  the  blood  of  our  brothers.  I  suppose 
he  would  no:  regret  it  more  than  1  would  regret 
it;  but  at  the  same  time,  I  should  regret  that  my 
brother  should  find  it  necessary  to  stain  his  hands 
in  my  blood  equally  as  much. 

I  will  now  notice  the  gentleman  from  Andrew, 
(Mr.  Hudgins,)  and  let  me  here  say  that  his  zeal, 
and  the  exertions  he  made,  not  in  defense  of  his 
country,  but  in  defense  of  secession  and  rebellion, 
deserve  a  better  cause.  I  say  it  was  an  able  ef- 
fort; and  the  cause  which  he  advocated  will  not 
find  a  better  advocate  than  he.  But  I  will  notice 
a  few  of  his  remarks,  and  try  to  do  him  no  in- 
justice, for  I  believe  he  has  obtained  leave 
of  absence,  and  has  left.  He  says  he 
understands  the  sovereign  States  bestowed 
certain  powers  on  the  Federal  Govern- 
ment. I  don't  understand  any  such  thing. 
I  understand  the  General  Government  is  a  Gov- 
ernment made  by  the  people  of  the  United  States, 
and  that  its  powers  are  from  the  people  of  the 
United  States,  and  not  from  the  States  at  all.  He 
says  that  he  does  not  believe  that  leaders  in  the 
South  are  traitors,  but  that  they  act  from  princi- 
ple, and  he  admires  their  patriotism.  I  think  he 
must  have  been  reading  Gov.  Jackson's  inaugu- 
ral address.  He  says,  "I  will  not  pretend  to  jus- 
tify the  conduct  of  South  Carolina,  but  I  say  she 
is  a  patriotic  State."  A  patriotic  State!  A  State 
that  has  torn  down  the  stars  and  stripes  of  our 
country— a  State  that  has  run  up  the  insignificant 
Palmetto  flag— a  State  that  has  fired  into  the  ves- 
sels of  the  United  States.  Oh,  that's  patriotic.  I 
say  the  people  of  South  Carolina  are  patriotic,  and 
I  have  no  doubt  of  it,  but  I  say  their  leaders  are 
traitors. 

The  gentleman  from  Andrew  says,  if  the  four- 
teen slave  States  all  go  out,  he  wants  Missouri 
to  go  with  them.  Now,  I  hope  the  freemen  of 
Missouri  will  be  actuated  by  higher  motives. 
And  should  oppression  become  so  intoler- 
able that  we  are  reduced  to  the  painful 
duty  of  revolution,  we  will  engage  in  it, 
but  not  because  other  States  go  out  or  revolt. 
That  I  believe  is  the  only  argument  which 
the  gentleman  offered  why  we  should  revolt. 
Now,  would  he  not  make  a  great  juror?  Suppose 
he  and  eleven  others  impannelled  to  try 
a  man  charged  with  the  crime  of  murder.  And, 
after  hearing  the  testimony,  and  argument  of 
counsel,  the  gentleman  from  Andrew  comes  to 
the  conclusion  that  the  testimony  is  not  suffi- 
cient to  satisfy  his  mind  of  the  guilt  of  the  crim- 
inal. But  if  the  other  eleven  jurors  say  he  ought 
to  be  hung,  would  not  his  argument  take  the 


gentleman  with  the  current,  and  convict  a  man 
because  others  say  he  should  die.  If  we  secede 
because  other  States  do  so,  are  we  not  for  se- 
cession in  the  abstract? 

And  right  here,  before  I  conclude,  let  me  say 
that  this  Convention  seems  to  have  disappointed 
those  who  have  called  it  together,  consequently 
they  are  talking  about  repealing  the  law.  They 
thought  that  by  calling  this  Convention  they 
could  take  Missouri  out  of  the  Union,  as  the  gen- 
tleman from  Buchanan  the  other  day  truly  stated. 
I  say  truly,  because  the  bill  was  rushed  through 
with  hot  haste,  and  without  time  to  reflect,  and 
the  people  had  but  few  days  to  prepare;  but  they 
rallied  to  the  standard,  and  sent  up  a  Convention 
to  keep  Missouri  in. 

Gentlemen,  I  will  try  to  say  but  little,  if  any- 
thing more,  on  this  subject  before  giving  my  vote. 
I  hope  we  shall  be  able  to  do  our  business  this 
week.  I  want  to  give  my  hand  to  Virginia,  Ken- 
tucky and  all  the  States  that  are  doing  what  they 
can  to  preserve  the  integrity  of  this  Government, 
and  will  ask  them  to  be  with  us,  and  not  go  with 
the  States  of  the  South  that  have  gone  out  of  this 
Union;  and  I  am  for  telling  them  that  we  will 
stand  by  our  Government  as  long  as  there  is  any 
hope  of  maintaining  its  integrity;  and  when  we 
are  forced  to  go  out  we  will  do  it  in  bitter  anguish 
and  not  in  joy.  It  is  said  by  some  gentlemen 
that  this  Convention  is  all  Union.  I  do  not  think 
so.  But  while  I  do  not  think  so,  I  hold  that  those 
who  are  not  for  the  Union  have  an  equal  right 
with  me  to  take  the  course  they  see  proper.  All 
I  desire  is,  that  every  man  should  state  his  posi- 
tion openly  and  firmly.  If  he  is  for  the  Union, 
it  is  his  duty  to  say  so.  If  he  is  against  it,  let 
him  say  so;  but  let  no  man  say  he  is  for  the 
Union  and  vote  against  it. 

Mr.  Redd.  Mr.  President  and  gentlemen  of 
the  Convention,  it  is  well  known  to  you  that  I 
entertain  the  view  that  a  State,  when  its  consti- 
tutional rights  have  been  trampled  under  foot, 
and  its  institutions  endangered,  has  the  right  to 
declare  the  compacts  that  unite  it  with  its  sister 
States  at  an  end.  I  did  not  desire  to  discuss  that 
question  for  the  plain,  palpable  reason  that, 
under  my  view,  that  right  does  not  spring  up 
until  a  state  of  case  exists  under  which  every  man 
who  is  not  for  unconditional  submission  would  ad- 
mit that  the  right  of  revolution  exists.  But  while 
I  would  concur  with  a  large  majority  of  this  Con- 
vention, and  of  my  fellow  citizens  of  Missouri  in 
the  existence  of  a  right  to  defend  the  Constitu- 
tion and  maintain  our  institutions,  if  necessary, 
out  of  the  Union,  and  by  force  of  arms,  I  did  not 
desire  to  enter  into  any  controversy  with  them  as 
to  the  name  by  which  that  right  should  be  called. 
I  was  willing  they  should  call  it  revolutionary 
right,  because  revolution  has  no  terrors  for  me. 
If  a  state  of  case  arises  in  which,  in  my  judg- 


130 


ment,  it  becomes  necessary  to  go  out  of  this  Union 
and  maintain  the  institutions  of  Missouri,  and 
the  constitutional  rights  of  their  citizens,  by  force 
of  arms,  I  say,  to  call  that  a  revolutionary  act, 
has  no  terrors  for  me.  I  care  not  for  a  name.  I 
did  not  intend  to  discuss  this  question  at  all;  but 
I  have  heard  Southern  men  and  Southern  States 
denounced  as  traitors  to  their  country;  I  have 
seen  the  charges  made  by  the  New  York  Tribune, 
and  papers  of  that  character,  and  I  have  heard 
those  charges  reiterated  and  detailed  here,  and  I 
deem  it  but  an  aet  of  justice  to  them  to  discuss  this 
question.  I  know,  in  entering  that  discussion,  that 
I  labor  under  many  and  great  disadvantages.  As 
I  have  been  a  farmer,  raised  up  between  the  han- 
dles of  a  plow,  receiving  only  such  an  education 
as  wa ;  received  in  my  day  at  an  ordinary  coun- 
try school,  I  have  to  meet  here  men  of  giant  in- 
tellect—men of  an  intellect  cultivated  by  educa- 
tion— men  of  a  national  renown  as  statesmen  and 
jurists.  I  state  this,  gentlemen,  that  if  I  should 
fail  in  bringing  your  minds  to  the  conclusion  at 
which,  mine  has  arrived,  you  may  attribute  it  to 
the  true  cause— the  weakness  of  the  advocate, 
and  not  any  defect  in  the  cause  which  he  pleads. 

There  is  one  proposition,  upon  the  determina- 
tion of  which  this  whole  controversy  rests.  You 
have  heard  it  announced  from  this  stand,  again 
and  again,  that  the  Constitution  of  the  United 
States  was  made  by  the  people  of  the  United 
States  as  one  community.  If  that  be  true,  then 
many  of  the  conclusions  to  which  the  gentlemen 
arrived  are  the  logical  sequence  of  that  proposi- 
tion- But  I  deny  that  it  is  true.  I  challenge 
them  to  the  proof.  This  is  not  a  legal  question — 
it  is  a  question  of  fact.  Who  made  the  Constitu- 
tion ?  I  say  it  is  not  a  legal  question,  who  made 
it.  What  its  effect  is,  is  a  legal  question.  But 
the  question,  who  made  it,  is  one  of  fact,  as 
muCh  as  the  question  lohen  it  was  made;  and  it  is 
a  question  to  be  determined,  like  every  other  fact, 
by  appealing  to  historical  evidence.  Gentlemen 
have  laid  before  you  the  evidence,  and  the  only 
evidence  they  can  produce,  to  sustain  their  prop- 
osition. That  evidence  is  contained  in  the  recital 
of  the  Constitution.  It  is  contained  in  the  pre- 
amble of  that  instrument  I  admit  that  the  in- 
strument upon  its  face  recites  the  fact  that  it  was 
by  the  people  of  the  United  States.  I  admit  that 
that  recital  is  prima  facie  evidence  of  the  truth 
of  that  fact ;  for  I  desire  to  meet  this  question  fairly. 
I  desire  to  give  full  weight  to  all  the  evidence  they 
can  adduce  to  maintain  their  proposition.  Then, 
I  say  that  recital  is  prima  facie  evidence  of  the 
fact.  But  it  is  not  conclusive.  Any  instrument 
may  recite  that  which  is  untrue,  if  it  has  man  for 
its  author.  The  real  question  is,  is  that  recital 
true?  And  it  can  ;be  decided  only  by  appealing 
to  historical  evidence. 

I  am  sor/y,  gentlemen,  that  my  health  is  in 
such  a  condition   that  I  cannot  discuss  this  ques- 


tion as  I  would  desire  to  do.  Before  I  enter  upon 
that  inquiry,  I  will  state  to  you  the  proposition 
that  in  my  judgment  is  true,  and  whose  truth  I 
believe  I  can  demonstrate.  It  is  this :  That  that 
instrument  was  made  by  the  States  acting  as 
States;  that  it  was  made  by  States,  which,  at  the 
time  of  making  it,  had  all  the  powers  of  sove- 
reignty in  them ;  that  it  is  a  compact  between 
those  States.  If  I  can  establish  that  proposition, 
then,  I  say,  I  can  establish  as  a  logical  sequence 
the  right  of  each  State,  when  that  compact  is  vi- 
olated, to  declare  it  at  an  end. 

How  did  this  Government  originate  ?  It  was 
not  eternal,  nor  was  there  a  time  when  it  had  no 
existence.  How,  then,  did  it  originate?  The 
thirteen  States  who  were  the  parties  entering  into 
that  compact,  or,  as  the  gentlemen  would  have  it, 
whose  people  entered  into  it,  had  not  always  been 
States.  But  a  few  years  prior  to  that  time  they  were 
British  colonies.  As  such  they  had  an  existence 
separate  and  distinct  from  each  other,  and  each  of 
them  was  united  to  the  British  crown  bv  the  tie 
of  allegiance.  On  the  4th  of  July,  1776,  those 
Colonies,  alleging  that  the  British  crown  had  vio- 
lated their  rights,  severed  that  tie,  dissolved  that 
political  union,  and  declared  that  they  were,  and 
of  right  ought  to  be,  free  and  independent  States. 
They  declared,  further,  that,  as  free  and  inde- 
pendent States,  they  had  the  power  to  declare 
war,  to  make  peace,  to  contract  alliances,  to  es- 
tablish commerce,  and  to  do  any  other  and 
all  other  acts  that  free  and  independ- 
ent States  may  of  right  do.  By  this  de- 
claration they  assumed  to  themselves  the  right 
to  exercise  all  the  powers  of  sovereignty,  as  free, 
independent  States;  and  they  maintained  that 
assumption  by  force  of  arms.  In  1777,  about 
one  year  after  that  declaration,  these  thirteen 
then  existing  States  entered  into  a  compact  with 
each  other  by  which  they  formed,  as  they  declare 
on  the  face  of  that  compact,  a  league  of  friend- 
ship, and  they  declared  their  object  in  entering 
into  that  compact,  to  be  for  their  mutual  defense 
and  general  welfare.  To  carry  out  that  ob- 
ject they  created  by  that  compact— (I  allude 
to  the  old  Articles  of  Confederation)  —  a 
common  agent  to  carry  out  these  common 
ends.  That  agent  was  called  a  Congress;  and  they 
delegated— mark,  did  not  give,  nor  cede,  nor 
grant;  there  is  a  world  of  difference  between  the 
terms — I  say  they  delegated  to  that  genei-al  agent 
the  powers  that  they  deemed  necessary  to  enable 
it  to  attain  the  end  of  its  creation,  which  was  a 
common  defense  against  a  common  enemy — the 
British  crown— then  the  mightiest  empire  in  the 
civilized  world.  By  the  fifth  article  of  that  com- 
pact, it  was  stipulated  that  in  this  Congress  each 
State,  without  regard  to  size  or  population,  should 
have  one  vote.  By  the  second  article  of  that 
compact,  it  was  stipulated  that  each  State 
should      retain      its      sovereignty,       and      all 


131 


the  powers  not  delegated  to  this  common  agent. 
Now,  gentlemen,  this  league,  this  confederacy 
between  the  sovereign  independent  States,  con- 
tinued until  1787,  a  period  of  ten  years,  and 
during  that  time  experience  demonstrated  that 
this  common  asjent  had  not  the  powers  necessary 
to  attain  the  end  of  its  creation,  and  that  agent 
itself  passed  an  act  in  the  spring  of  1787,  by 
which  it  called  upon  the  States  which  had  created 
it  to  send  delegates  to  a  Convention  for  the  pur- 
pose of  remedying  defects  in  that  compact.  The 
States  responded  to  that  call.  Each  in  its 
own  way  selected  its  own  delegates.  Some 
acted  through  State  Conventions,  and  some 
through  their  Legislature,  and  some  through 
their  Executive.  These  agents  or  delegates  as- 
sembled in  Convention,  in  September,  1787,  and 
the  result  of  their  deliberations  and  labors,  was, 
the  Constitution  of  the  United  States.  The  Con- 
vention framed  that  instrument,  but  its  vitality 
and  binding  force  it  received  not  from  the  Con- 
vention. Why  look  at  the  very  terms  of  the  in- 
strument itself.  The  seventh  and  last  clause  pro- 
vides that  when  it  is  ratified  by  any  nine  of  the 
States,  it  shall  be  a  Constitution  for  the  States  so 
ratifying  it.  From  this  it  is  evident  that  it  was 
to  have  no  force,  no  binding  effect,  until  an 
event  should  haopen  in  the  future,  which  might 
never  have  happened,  to  wit :  its  ratification  by 
nine  States.  That  being  so,  then  what  was  the 
office  of  this  Convention?  It  was  neither  more 
nor  less  than  that  of  a  scrivener.  When  it  had 
drawn  the  instrument,  it  had  discharged  its 
whole  duty — exhausted  its  whole  power.  When 
was  the  instrument  ratified?  If  you  can  ascer- 
tain that— for  by  the  instrument  itself,  it  was  to 
be  referred  to  the  States  for  ratification,  and  to 
have  no  force  until  nine  of  them  had  ratified  it, 
and  then  it  was  to  have  force  only  between  those 
nine  that  had  ratified  it— I  say  if  you  can  ascer- 
tain that,  then  you  can  ascertain  the  time  when 
it  received  its  vitality  as  a  binding  instrument. 

Look  for  a  moment  at  the  history  of  that 
period.  You  will  find  that  three  States  ratified  it 
in  the  fall  of  the  same  year;  that  six  States  rati- 
fied it  in  the  early  part  of  the  next  year,  which 
was  1788,  and  that  in  the  month  of  June,  1788, 
New  Hampshire,  the  ninth  State  ratified  it.  Then, 
and  not  until  then,  was  it  a  constitution— then, 
and  not  until  then,  had  it  any  life  or  any  vitality, 
or  any  binding  force  or  effect  as  a  legal  instru- 
ment. Now,  from  whence  did  it  receive  that  vi- 
tality? Did  it  receive  it  from  the  Convention? 
If  it  did,  why,  then,  it  would  have  been  a  consti- 
tution at  the  very  moment  it  came  from  its  hand. 
But  by  its  very  terms  it  was  to  have  no  force  until 
ratified  by  the  States.  Then,  I  say,  the  proposi- 
tion is  clearly  and  unquestionably  established, 
that  its  vitality  was  imparted  by  that  ratification; 
and  if  eight  States  had  ratified  it  and  five  had  re- 
fused to  ratify  it,  it  would  have  had  no  vitality  to 


this  day.  From  1788  to  1790,  at  various  periods, 
the  remaining  four  states,  by  a  like  ratifica- 
tion, became  parties  to  the  compact — became 
members  of  the  Union.— Rhode  Island,  which 
was  the  last  State  that  ratified  it,  did  not 
do  so  until  1790.  Now,  I  ask  you,  where  were 
these  four  States  before  they  came  into  the 
Union?  They  were  not  under  the  old  Arti- 
cles of  Confederation,  because  they  had  been 
abandoned.  They  were  not  under  this  Constitu- 
tion, because  they  had  not  ratified  it,  and  by  its 
terms  it  was  to  bind  only  those  that  did  ratify  it. 
Where  were  they,  then?  They  were  standing 
out  as  sovereign  and  independent  States,  with 
all  the  powers  of  sovereignty  that  Eussia  has 
to-day. 

Now,  gentlemen,  I  ask  you  whether  I  have  not 
established  the  proposition  that  that  instrument 
was  made  by  the  States,  and  not  by  the  people  of 
the  United  States,  acting  as  one  community  ?  If 
you  need  any  further  evidence,  look  at  the  instru- 
ment itself.  How  can  you  amend  it?  If  every 
man,  woman  and  child  in  the  United  States  were 
assembled  together  in  one  mass,  and  were  unan- 
imous in  desiring  a  change,  they  could  not 
change  a  single  clause  of  that  instrument.  If 
your  National  Convention  assembles,  it  cannot 
change  a  single  clause  in  that  instrument.  Then 
how  can  it  be  changed?  There  is  but  oneway 
it  can  be  changed,  and  that  is  by  the  consent  of 
those  who  made  it— videlicit :  the  States.  It  is 
true  that  there  are  two  ways  in  which  the  propo- 
sition of  change  may  be  made — there  are  two 
sources  from  which  a  proposition  to  amend  can 
come — but  there  is  only  one  source  that  can  give 
those  amendments  life  and  vitality,  and  that  is  the 
separate  action  o"  the  States,  each  acting  as  they 
acted  in  the  beginning — as  sovereign  and  inde- 
pendent States. 

You  have  one  mode  of  changing  that  instrument 
before  you  for  consideration— a  National  Conven- 
tion.   What  can  that  Convention  do  in  the  way 
of  making  a  change  in  the  Constitution?    It  can 
propose  amendments.    That  is  all  it  can  do.    It 
can  do  what  this  original  Convention  did  in  1787; 
it  can  act  as  a  scrivener  in  drafting  an  instru- 
ment, but  it  can    give  it  no  life.     When  the 
amendments  are  agreed  upon  by  that  Convention 
they  are  to  be  laid  before  the  States,  each  acting 
separately  for  itself,  and  each  ratifying  or  reject- 
ing that   amendment;   and   if  three- fourths  of 
them  thus  acting  ratify  the  amendment  proposed, 
then,  and  not  until  then,  does  it  become  a  part  of 
the  Constitution.    If  any  less  than  three-fourths 
ratify  it — if  anymore  than  one- fourth  reject  it- 
then  it  falls  dead.    From  this  it  is  evident  that, 
whatever  amendments  be  proposed,  they  must 
receive  vitality  from  separate  State  action,  or  they 
will   receive  their   death-blow   from   the  same 
source.    Gentlemen  tell  me  that  the  Constitution 
was  made  by  the  people  of  the  United  States  as 


132 


one  community.  Such  a  proposition,  although 
it  is  recited  on  the  face  of  that  instrument,  falsi- 
fies all  history— it  falsifies  the  instrument  itself. 
It  is  not  true. 

I  have  referred  you  to  one  way  of  proposing 
amendments.  There  is  yet  another  way,  which 
is  provided  hy  the  Constitution  itself.  It  is  the 
action  of  Congress..  Congress  may  by  a  majori- 
ty vote  of  two-thirds  propose  amendments.  They 
have  been  trying  to  do  it  all  the  last  session.  Mr. 
Crittenden  laid  before  it  his  amendment.  Judge 
Douglas  laid  before  it  his  amendment.  The  Bor- 
der State  proposition  was  laid  before  it,  and  so 
was  the  report  of  the  Committee  of  Thirty-three. 
But  it  refused  to  refer  any  of  them  to  the  States. 
It  could  have  so  referred  them.  Congress  can 
propose  to  the  States  any  amendment  it  sees  fit; 
but  its  power  stops  there.  Congress  can  only  act 
as  a  scrivener— write  out  the  amendments— that 
is  all  it  can  do.  They  are  laid  before  the  States, 
each  State  acting  for  itself  through  its  own  body 
— its  Convention,  assembled  as  this— and  from 
the  action  of  those  States  those  amendments, 
whether  proposed  by  Congress  or  by  the  National 
Convention,  receive  life  or  death. 

Now,  gentlemen,  if  this  be  true,  what  is  the 
natural  sequence  ?  I  tell  you  it  is  this :  while  I 
admit  that  there  is  no  common  tribunal  to  whom 
States  can  appeal  when  they  differ  about  com- 
pacts or  anything1  else ;  while  there  is  no  common 
tribunal  lower  than  he  who  is  the  Judge  and 
Ruler  of  nations,  yet  there  is  a  law  that  governs 
nations.  There  is  a  law  by  which  sovereign  States 
may  ascertain  their  rights  and  their  remedies,  al- 
though there  is  no  tribunal  to  enforce  those  rights 
or  enforce  those  remedies.  What  is  that  law? 
It  is  a  law  that  has  its  foundations  laid  broad 
and  deep  in  the  principles  of  eternal  justice.  It 
is  a  law  that  has  received  the  universal  assent  of 
all  civilized  nations  on  the  globe,  and  it  is  called 
the  law  of  nations.  Now,  what  is  that  law  as  ap- 
plied to  compacts  between  sovereign  States  ?  What 
are  the  rights  of  the  parties  ?  what  are  the  pow- 
ers of  the  parties  ?  what  are  their  remedies  under 
that  law?  By  that  law,  when  independent  sov- 
ereign States  enter  into  a  compact  with  each 
other,  they  are  bound  to  keep  that  compact;  they 
are  bound  to  perform  its  terms  and  its 
stipulations  in  good  faith.  That  law,  when 
the  compact  is  violated,  recognizes  in  the  injured 
party  the  right  and  power  to  resort  to  two  reme- 
dies. What  are  they?  It  enables  the  injured 
party  to  say  to  the  wrong-doer :  you  cannot  by 
your  wrong  annul  your  compact.  I  will  hold  you 
to  its  performance,  and  I  will  demand  of  you 
indemnity  for  its  violation.  That  is  one  remedy. 
Another  remedy  is  this :  the  innocent  party  has 
the  right  to  say  to  the  wrong-doer :  having  vio- 
lated the  compact  that  you  entered  into,  I  declare 
that  compact  at  an  end.  By  your  wrong  you 
have  given  me  the  power  to  annul  the  compact 


and  discharge  myself  from  its  obligations.  That 
is  the  law  of  nations,  as  applied  to  the  compacts 
entered  into  between  sovereign  and  independent 
States. 

Now,  under  that  law,  no  State  in  this  Union 
can  declare  its  compact  at  an  end  without 
cause.  If  it  does,  it  is  itself  the  wrong  doer,  and 
violates  that  compact,  and  upon  that  contingency 
I  admit  the  doctrine  of  coercion,  because  military 
power  is  the  only  tribunal  to  whom  nations  can 
appeal  in  the  assertion  of  their  rights,  and  if  the 
States  of  the  South  have  violated  that  compact, 
and  the  States  of  the  North  have  kept  it  in  good 
faith,  then  I  say  the  States  of  the  South,  by  the 
law  of  nations,  are  wrong,  and  the  States  of  the 
North  have  the  right  to  coerce  them  and  compel 
them  to  discharge  the  obligations  imposed  by 
that  compact;  but,  if  the  States  of  the  North 
have  violated  that  compact,  if  they  have  disre- 
garded its  provisions  and  trampled  it  under  foot; 
then  I  say  the  right  of  the  Southern  States,  as 
the  injured  States,  is  equally  clear  to  declare  that 
compact  at  an  end,  and  no  longer  binding  upon 
them,  and  the  right  to  resort  to  force  to  compel 
them  to  submit  to  wrong  and  oppression,  does 
not  and  can  not  exist  by  that  or  any  other  law. 
Have  the  Northern  States  kept  that  compact — 
have  they  done  it?  They  have  their  champions 
here  on  this  floor — men  of  national  renown  as 
statesmen  and  jurists — I  ask  them,  have  they 
kept  that  compact?  Let  them  answer  that  to  the 
satisfaction  of  this  Convention  and  the  satisfac- 
tion of  the  people  of  Missouri,  before  they  under- 
take to  denounce  Southern  men  as  traitors. 
What  are  the  provisions  of  that  compact? 
By  the  second  clause  of  the  second  section 
of  the  fourth  article  of  that  compact, 
these  States  covenanted  that  when  a  man  was 
indicted  in  one  State  for  treason  or  felony 
or  any  other  crime,  and  escaped  into  the  limits  of 
another,  upon  demands  being  made  by  the 
Executive  of  the  State  from  which  he  fled,  the 
State  holding  him  shall  surrender  him  for  trial. 
What  was  the  object  of  that  covenant?  What 
was  the  object  of  the  Constitution?  Look  at  its 
objects  as  expressed  upon  its  face.  One  of  them 
is  to  establish  justice.  Here  is  the  provision  to 
carry  out  that  object.  Have  they  kept  that  com- 
pact? No,  they  have  violated  it — trampled  it 
under  foot  again  and  again;  for  years  they  have 
done  it.  Ah,  and  worse  than  all;  worse,  tenfold 
worse  than  the  act,  they  have  justified  it.  They 
have  announced  the  startling  proposition  that 
slave  stealing  is  no  crime.  They  have  based  that 
upon  two  propositions  equally  startling,  that  strike 
at  the  very  foundation  of  the  slave  institutions  of 
their  sister  States  in  that  compact.  They  say 
that  nothing  but  property  is  the  subject  of  lar- 
ceny. Well,  that  every  man  knows.  That  every 
lawyer  knows.  What  is  the  next  proposition? 
Man  cannot  hold  property  in  man.    What  is  the 


133 


logical  sequence?  Why  is  it  that  slave  stealing 
is  no  crime?  You  cannot  steals,  slave.  Why? 
A  slave  is  a  man — there  can  be  no  property  in  man. 

Now,  gentlemen,  I  am  not  talking  about  the 
propositions  enunciated  by  a  few  fanatics.  I  am 
not  doing,  as  has  been  done  from  this  stand,  by 
gentlemen  who  have  tried  the  South,  not  by  her 
acts,  but  by  the  propositions  enunciated  by  a  few 
of  her  ultra  men,  such  as  Yancey  and  others — I 
am  not  trying  these  Northern  States  by  that  rule. 
If  I  did,  I  could  convict  them  of  every  crime  in 
the  catalogue.  No,  I  will  not  do  so,  because  it  is 
not  just  and  fair;  and  while  I  have  as  little  love 
for  the  anii-slavery  party  that  has  controlled  the 
action  of  these  Northern  States,  as  any  man  can 
have,  I  have  a  love  for  justice  that  will  prevent 
me  from  resorting  to  any  sort  of  demagogism. 
Then,  I  say,  this  has  not  been  done  by  a  few  ul- 
tra Northern  men,  it  has  been  the  deliberate  act 
of  Northern  States,  speaking  through  their  own 
chosen  authorities. 

I  will  say  here,  in  passing,  that  I  have  no  com- 
plaint to  make  of  the  invasion  of  Virginia  by 
John  Brown.  The  Northern  States  are  not  charg- 
able  with  it.  It  is  not  right  that  they  should  be 
held  accountable  for  it,  unless  they  knew  it  be- 
forehand, and  failed  to  arrest  him  in  his  design. 
Therefore  I  have  said  nothing  about  him.  But 
in  regard  to  this  subject,  it  is  stated  in  the  ma- 
jority report  that  when  a  few  madmen  invaded 
the  soil  of  a  Southern  State,  and  spilled  the  blood 
of  Southern  men,  they  were  hanged,  and  that 
was  the  end  of  it.  Now  that,  in  my  judgment, 
is  not  the  voice  of  history.  It  is  true  that  John 
Brown  was  hung.  It  is  true  many  of  his  confed- 
erates Avere  hung;  but  was  that  the  end  of  it? 
No,  they  were  canonized  as  martyrs  to  liberty 
and  justice.  Was  that  the  end  of  it?  No!  for 
two  of  them  escaped,  one  to  the  State  of  Ohio, 
the  other  to  our  sister  State  of  Iowa.  They  were 
demanded  by  the  Governor  of  Virginia,  but  those 
States  violated  their  compact  by  refusing  to  de- 
liver them  up  for  trial.     That  was  the  end  of  it. 

Now,  by  the  third  clause  of  the  second  section 
of  the  4th  article  of  the  compact,  the  States  agreed 
with  each  other  that  when  a  man  bound  to  ren- 
der service  in  one  State  escaped  into  another,first, 
that  he  should  not  be  discharged  from  service  by 
the  law  of  that  other  State;  secondly,  that  that 
State  should  deliver  him  up.  This  was  a  com- 
pact not  between  the  North  and  the  South,  be- 
cause they  were  then  all  slave  States  except  one, 
and  she  (Ma-sachussetts)  held  slaves  within  her 
limits.  But  it  was  emphatically  a  compact  be- 
tween all  the  States— a  compact  by  which  Mis- 
souri is  bound  as  much  as  Illinois.  For  if  a  fu- 
gitive slave  escapes  from  Kentucky  into 
Missouri,  Missouri  is  bound  first  not  to 
attempt  to  set  him  free  by  her  laws, 
and  secondly,  to  deliver  him  up  to  his  master. 
Now,  have  they  complied  with  that  compact? 


Here  is  something  that  they  agree  to  do,  and 
something  that  they  agree  not  to  do.  The  thing 
they  agree  to  do  is,  that  they  will  deliver  him  up. 
The  thing  they  agree  not  to  do  is,  that  they  will 
not  attempt  to  set  him  free  by  their  laws.  I  say 
they  have  violated  that  compact  in  both  its 
branches.  They  have  done  it  willfully,  deliber- 
ately and  repeatedly. 

How  have  they  done  it  ?  They  covenanted  that 
they  would  deliver  him  up.  Did  they  make  any 
law  to  carry  that  covenant  into  effect  ?  Where 
is  the  State  that  made  it  ?  No,  they  violated  that 
covenant.  They  neglected  to  do  that  which  they 
covenanted  they  would  do.  How  about  the 
other  branch?  They  covenanted  they  would 
not  attempt  to  free  him  by  their  law.  Have  they 
not  done  it  ?  Have  they  not  passed  their  personal 
liberty  bills,  with  the  avowed  object  of  making 
that  slave  free  ?  They  have.  Aye,  and  they  have 
gone  further  than  that.  Some  of  them  have 
imposed  heavy  penalties  upon  the  master,  for 
daring  to  assert  his  constitutional  rights  to 
the  possession  of  his  slave  within  their  limits. 
Now,  if  these  States  had  lived  up  to  their 
compact— if  they  had  passed  no  law  to  set 
that  slave  free— if  they  had  passed  laws  to 
secure  his  delivery  to  his  master — there  would 
have  been  no  necessity  for  Congress  to  le- 
gislate upon  the  subject  at  all.  But  they  violated 
that  compact,  and  Congress,  the  common  agent 
of  all,  that  was  created  for  the  purpose  of  estab- 
lishing justice,  interposed  and  enacted  the  fugi- 
tive slave  law.  How  did  the  Northern  States 
treat  that  law?  Did  they  respect  it?  Did  they 
obey  it?  No.  They  treated  it  as  they  had  treat- 
ed the  Constitution— they  trampled  it  under  foot 
—they  nullified  it,  again  and  again,  by  deliberate 
State  legislation;  and  they  have  done  all  this 
against  the  earnest  entreaty  of  their  sister  States. 
They  have  done  it  against  the  repeated  remon- 
strances of  a  united  South. 

A^ain,  gentlemen,  the  South  has  ever  held  that 
every  citizen  of  the  United  States,  without  regard 
to  where  he  was  born  or  reared,  has  a  right  to 
go  into  any  territory  opened  for  settlement  and 
take  with  him  the  members  of  his  familv  and 
his  property ;  that  the  Constitution  of  his  coun- 
try, that  palladium  of  his  rights,  extends  over 
him  in  that  territory  and  protects  him  in  his 
family  and  his  property.  I  say  that  has  ever 
been  held  by  the  South  to  be  the  doctrine  of  the 
Constitution — and  it  has  been  so  held  by  the 
Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States.  I  ask  you,  is 
it  sot  right?  There  are  members  here  of  a  party 
who  have  ever  disputed  that  proposition.  I  ask 
them  to  throw  aside  if  they  can,  the  shackles  of 
party  prej  udice,  and  pass  upon  that  proposition, 
and  tell  me  whether  it  is  not  right  and  just. 
Now,  the  North  denied  it.  The  Northern  States, 
controlled  by  a  feeling  of  anti-slavery  and  hostility 
to  the  slave  institution,  say  to  Southern  men,  yon 


134 


may  go  to  the  Territories,  "but  you  must  leave 
behind  members  of  your  family — those  who  were 
born  in  your  household — those  to  whom  you 
have  become  attached  next  to  your  wife  and 
your  children — you  must  leave  them  behind. 
More  than  that — they  have  said,  if  you  dare  to 
take  them,  we  will,  by  Congressional  legislation, 
take  them  away.  We  will  sever  your  family 
ties,  and  take  from  you  your  property,  and  make 
you  no  compensation.  Is  that  right— is  it  just? 
Now,  a  gentleman  on  this  floor  has  said,  have 
you  any  complaints  to  make  against  the  General 
Government?  Has  the  General  Government 
ever  violated  the  rights  of  the  South  ?  I  sav,  yes, 
she  has.  Look  at  your  Oregon  bill.  What  do 
you  find  there?  You  find  a  clause  excluding 
Southern  men  from  that  Territory,  unless  they 
leave  behind  them  their  slaves ;  or,  if  they  take 
them  there,  the  law  takes  them  away.  Then,  I 
say,  the  General  Government  did  violate  that 
right  in  the  passage  of  the  Oregon  bill.  It  also 
violated  that  right  in  the  passage  of  the  Missouri 
Compromise  bill.  But  I  do  not  complain  of  the 
General  Government  on  that  ground.  And  why? 
Because  Southern  men,  for  the  sake  of  peace  and 
the  Union  that  they  love,  consented  to  surrender 
a  portion  of  their  rights,  thinking  that,  with  that 
surrender  they  would  appease  this  moloch  of 
anti-slavery.  But  what  is  the  condition  of 
things  now?  How  do  we  now  stand?  How 
did  we  stand  when  these  States  went  out?  A 
President  was  nominated  upon  principles  that 
were  destructive  to  the  institutions  of  the  South; 
a  President  was  nominated  who  had  enunciated 
the  destructive  error  that  our  Government,  as  our 
fathers  made  it,  partly  slave  and  partly  free,  could 
not  so  continue  to  exist— that  in  that  condition  it 
was  a  house  divided  against  itself,  and  must  fall. 
It  is  true  he  said :  "I  do  not  anticipate  that  the 
house  will  fall— but  the  cause  of  division  will  be 
removed."  Well,  how  removed?  He  tells  you, 
"an  irrepressible  conflict  is  going  on  bet  ween  free- 
dom and  slavery."  He  did  not  enunciate  the 
exact  truth  there.  It  is  a  truth,  but  not  the 
whole  truth.  He  should  have  said  that  freedom, 
or  this  anti-slavery  party,  is  waging  an  "irrepres- 
sible conflict"  upon  the  slave  institution  of  the 
South.  If  he  had  said  that,  he  would  have  said 
the  whole  truth.  But  he  tells  you  that  that  con- 
flict cannot  stop — that  it  must  continue  until 
slavery  is  in  a  process  of  extinction.  That  is  how 
this  cause  of  difficulty  is  to  be  removed.  The 
Northern  States  indorsed  these  doctrines  and  pur- 
poses by  large  majorities.  Well,  now,  how  is 
slavery  to  be  extinguished  ?  Gentlemen,  while  I 
do  not  admire  the  principles  of  this  party,  I  must 
say  this  for  them,  I  do  admire  their  sagacity;  I 
do  admire  the  ability  of  the  men  who  stand  at  the 
head  of  that  party.  If  wisdom  exists  in  adapting 
means  to  ends,  then  they  are  wise  men  and  sages. 
Let  us  look  at  their  plan.    Their  object  is  the  ex- 


tinction of  slavery  everywhere,  or  the  establish- 
ment of  the  proposition  that  man  cannot  hold 
property  in  man.  How  is  it  to  be  done?  We 
have  fifteen  slave  States  and  eighteen  free  States. 
We  have  territory  enough  for  fifty  more  States. 
We  are  opening  our  Territories  to  the  settlement 
of  a  foreign  population,  and  that  population 
is  anti-slavery.  Now,  tell  me,  if  you  con- 
fine slavery  to  the  limits  of  fifteen  States;  if 
this  immense  territory,  extending  across  to  the 
Pacific,  is  to  be  peopled  and  brought  into  the 
Union  as  States,  and  with  a  foreign  emigration 
enough  to  people  a  State  every  year;  how  long 
would  it  be  before  the  free  States  would  have  a 
majority  of  three-fourths  of  the  States  in  the 
Confederacy?  It  would  occur  in  the  next  thirty 
years  as  certainly  as  the  sun  will  rise  to-morrow. 
When  it  does  occur,  what  is  the  result?  Now,  I 
will  do  this  anti-slavery  party  the  justice  to  say, 
that  I  have  no  doubt  they  are  honest.  I  have  no 
doubt  they  are  acting  up  to  the  convictions 
of  their  own  minds  as  to  the  duty  that 
they  owe  to  themselves  and  to  their 
God.  I  judge  men  by  their  acts,  and  not  by 
what  they  say.  What  is  the  leading  principle  of 
that  party?  It  is  this : — that  slavery  is  a  social, 
moral  and  political  evil.  What  is  the  corollary  of 
this  proposition  ?  It  is  this : — that  it  is  our  duty  to 
get  rid  of  that  evil  wherever  we  can  reach  it — 
hence  we  wiU  abolish  it  in  the  Territories — hence 
we  will  abolish  it  in  the  District  of  Columbia — 
hence  we  will  interfere  with  the  inter-slave  trade  : 
contending,  as  they  do,  that  under  the  Con- 
stitution they  have  the  power  to  do  this. 
But  they  do  not  propose,  for  the  present,  to  in- 
terfere with  it  in  the  States,  because  they  admit 
that  the  Constitution  guards  and  guarantees  it 
there.  It  is  true,  there  is  one  element  of  that  party 
I  do  not  charge  its  acts  upon  the  party,  and  they 
(are  not  responsible  for  it,)  that  takes  even  a 
broader  position,  namely,  that  slavery  is  an  evil 
of  a  character  that  no  law  can  guard,  no  consti- 
tution can  sanctify ;  and  that  there  is  a  higher  law 
that  nulifies  that  Constitution,  and  hence  that 
element  is  for  abolishing  it  in  the  States  now. 
But,  as  I  said  before,  I  do  not  regard  that  to  be 
the  position  of  the  Republican  party. 

I  honestly  believe  while  the  Constitution  con- 
tinues as  it  is,  that  the  Republican  party  would  not 
attempt  by  Federal  legislation  to  abolish  slavery  in 
the  States,  for  I  believe  that  they  are  honest,  but 
their  principles  would  in  the  course  of  time  ne- 
cessarily lead  them  to  that  consummation.  When 
thirty  years  have  rolled  on — when  State  after 
State  has  been  brought  into  this  Union,  until  the 
free  States  have  the  requisite  majority  of  three- 
founhs— what  will  they  do  then?  Then,  for  the 
first  time  in  their  history,  the  anti-slavery  party 
controling  those  States,  will  have  power,  under 
the  Constitution  to  abolish  slavery  in  the  States. 
Having  the  power,  the  moral  responsibility,  ac- 


135 


cording  to  their  views  of  slavery,  rests  upon  them 
to  do  it,  and  as  they  are  honest  men,  they  will 
do  it  And  if  that  doctrine  was  established — I 
mean  the  doctrine  of  exclusion  of  slavery  from 
the  Territories — then  the  handwriting  is  upon  the 
wall  that  announces  the  destruction  of  slavery,  as 
certainly  as  it  announced  the  destruction  of  Bel- 
shazzar. 

Now,  in  such  a  condition  of  things,  our  South- 
ern brethren  seeing  that  this  Constitution  had 
been  violated— that  it  had  been  trampled  under- 
foot time  and  again— that  a  system  of  poli- 
cy had  been  established  that  would  inevitably  re- 
sult in  the  overthrow  of  their  institutions,  and 
that  the  time  was  rapidly  approaching  when  that 
system  of  policy  would  be  earned  out — severed 
the  tie  that  bound  them  to  the  Union, 
and  under  the  law  of  nations  de- 
clared the  compact  at  an  end,  and  took  their  fate 
into  their  own  hands,  as  did  the  sires  of  1776. 
While  I  admit  that  they  had  cause,  yet  I  do  not 
approve  of  the  act.  While  I  admit  the  right,  I  do 
not  approve  its  exercise.  I  believe  it  was  hasty 
and  unwise  that  a  portion  of  these  fifteen  States, 
those  who  seceded,  having  homogeneous  institu- 
tions with  the  Border  Statet— having  the  same 
constitutional  rights  to  protect,  ought,  in  good 
faith  to  have  staid  in  the  Union,  and  co-operated 
with  us  in  endeavoring  to  settle  the  section- 
al issues  upon  some  basis  that  would  have  se- 
cured our  slave  institutions  and  constitutional 
rights.  That  is  what,  in  my  judgment,  they 
ought  to  have  done.  They  have  not  done  it. 
They  had  a  right  to  judge  for  themselves.— 
But  while  I  must  condemn  that  act  as  hasty 
and  unwise,  I  must  say  that  they  are  not  trai- 
tors, unless  our  sires  in  1776  deserve  that  name. 
The  States  in  the  compact  between  them  delega- 
ted certain  specified  powers  enumerated  in  that 
instrument  to  the  General  Government  created 
by  them.  There  are  certain  other  powers,  such 
as  to  coin  money,  the  enactment  of  an  ex-post 
facto  law,  or  a  law  impairing  the  obligation  of 
contracts,  &c,  the  exercise  of  which  is  prohibi- 
ted by  that  instrument  to  the  States,  and  for  fear 
that  the  Government  they  had  created  would 
usurp  powers  not  delegated,  a  clause  was  insert- 
ed that  all  powers  not  delegated  (a  word  that  im- 
plies the  power  to  take  back)  to  the  General 
Government  by  the  Constitution,  and  not  prohib- 
ited by  it  to  the  States,  are  reserved  to  the 
States  or  the  people.  The  power  recognized  by 
the  law  of  nations  to  be  in  every  sovereign  State 
to  declare  any  compact  entered  into  by  it  with 
other  States  at  an  end  when  violated  by  the  other 
parties  to  the  compact  not  being  one  of  the 
powers  delegated  to  the  General  Government,  nor 
one  of  the  powers  prohibited  to  the  States,  stands 
like  the  power  to  legislate  on  the  subject  of  con- 
tracts, the  descent  of  property,  or  the  social  rela- 
tions of  husband  and  wife,  parent  and  child, 


guardian  and  ward,  master  and  servant,  as  one 
of  the  powers  expressly  reserved  to  the  States, 
and  may  lawfully  be  exercised  when  the  occasion 
arises,  without  incurring  the  odium  of  treason. 

Now,  gentlemen,  while  I  differ  with  the  first 
resolution  in  this  majority  report,  I  would  be  will- 
ing to  assent  to  it  if  the  word  "motive"  was  sub- 
stituted for  the  word  "  cause."  Can  it  be  there 
is  no  cause,  notwithstanding  these  repeated  vio- 
lations of  the  Constitution,  notwithstanding  the 
fact  that  our  institutions  are  in  danger —can  it  be 
that  there  is  no  cause  for  exercising  the  right  of 
secession  ?  I  certainly  admit  the  right,  and  that 
cause  exists  for  its  exercise;  but  I  oppose  its  ex- 
ercise, and  I  shall  continue  to  oppose  its  exercise, 
so  long  as  there  is  a  hope  of  obtaining  our  rights 
in  the  Union.  I  oppose  its  exercise,  not  because 
I  deny  the  right  itself,  but  because  I  love  the 
Union.  I  love  it  because  our  fathers  made  it.  I 
love  it  because  we  have  enjoyed  under  it  unex- 
ampled prosj>erity.  I  love  it  because  of  the  glo- 
rious memories  that  cluster  around  it ;  and  it 
is  my  love  for  the  Union,  and  no  other 
motive,  that  makes  me  oppose  secession,  or 
revolution,  and  actuated  by  the  same  motive,  I 
shall  continue  to  oppose  it  so  long  as  there  is  a 
hope  of  amicable  settlement.  But  if  the  time 
should  unfortunately  come— God  forbid  that  it 
should — when  all  hope  is  lost — when  Missouri  is 
driven  to  one  of  two  alternatives,  either  to  sub- 
mitto  the  aggressions  of  this  sectional  party,  and 
surrender  her  slave  institutions  at  its  bidding,  or 
go  out  of  the  Union — I  shall  then,  notwithstand- 
ing the  committee  organized  upon  this  subject  by 
this  body,  introduce  upon  this  floor  an  ordinance 
of  secession.  The  action  of  no  such  committees, 
and  the  threats  of  no  party,  have  any  terrors  for 
me.  But  I  never  will  do  it  until  then.  I  believe 
that  this  Union,  ard  our  institutions  in  the  Union, 
can  be  saved ;  for  though  the  political  firmament 
is  covered  by  a  dark  and  portentous  cloud,  with- 
in whose  lurid  bosom  slumbers  the  whirlwind  of 
desolation  and  civil  strife,  yet  there  are  breaks  in 
that  cloud,  through  which  we  can  see  the  glim- 
mering of  the  sunlight  of  peace.  But  if  the  time 
arrives  when  these  breaks  shall  close,  and  that 
cloud  present  but  one  aspect,  and  is  ready  to 
burst  over  our  heads,  and  the  border  slave  States 
shall  have  gone  out,  then  my  voice  shnll  be  raised 
for  Missouri's  standing  up  for  her  rights  out  of 
the  Union — aye,  unto  the  last  dollar  and  to  the 
last  man. 

I  am  opposed  to  this  amendment.  With  one 
alteration  I  could  give  it  my  hearty  assent.  If  it 
is  taken  to  mean  Missouri  while  she  remains  in  the 
Union  will  not  aid  a  seceding  State  to  make  war 
upon  the  General  Government,  I  give  it  my  hear- 
ty assent,  for  Missouri  will  not  do  that— Missouri 
is  for  peace.  But  if  it  means  that  Missouri  in?*o 
time  to  come,  no  matter  what  changes  may  oc- 
cur, will  not  aid  a  seceding  State  in  making 


136 


war  upon  the  General  Government.  I  cannot  give 
it  my  assent,  because  Missouri  may  be  a  seceding 
State  herself.  I  hope  she  never  will  be.  God  forbid 
that  she  should !  But  she  may  be,  and  if  this  diffi- 
culty be  not  settled  upon  some  basis  that  will 
guarantee  her  institutions,  she  will  be.  With 
one  change,  namely,  that  Missouri  will  not  aid 
a  seceding  State,  while  she  is  in  the  Union,  I  will 
give  it  my  assent;  but  if  she  is  driven  out,  and  war 
is  made  upon  her,  and  upon  the  other  States,  she 
will  and  must  be  prepared  to  resist  the  General 
Government. 

Mr.  Gantt.  Mr.  President,  in  entering  upon 
this  discussion,  I  shall  first  address  myself  to  the 
proposition  discussed  by  the  gentleman  who  last 
engaged  the  attention  of  the  house.  He  set  out 
to  prove  that  secession  was  a  right  that  could  be 
exercised  without  a  violation  of  the  Constitution, 
and  then  went  on  to  show  that  while  he  conten- 
ded for  the  right,  he  considered  the  action  of  our 
Southern  sisters  hasty  and  ill-judged,  and  would 
not  recommend  Missouri  to  follow  their  example. 
But  in  order  that  this  might  be  one  of  the  steps 
Missouri  might  take  hereafter  without  guilt,  and 
in  order  that  she  might  understand  distinctly 
what  her  rights  were,  he  labored  to  show  that  it 
was  a  right,  and  might  constitutionally  be  exer- 
cised. I  have  seldom,  Mr.  President,  listened  to 
an  argument  as  to  the  nature  of  the  Constitution 
which  was  so  decidedly  in  the  teeth  of  the  can- 
on against  self-slaughter.  Ho  refers  to  the 
fact  that  the  Constitution  was  ratified  by  the 
States,  and  that,  until  ratified  by  the  States,  it 
was  not  binding  upon  any  of  them — nay,  that 
until  it  was  ratified  by  nine  States  it  was  not 
binding  upon  the  eight  which  had  previously  rat- 
ified it ;  he  refers  to  that  fact  to  show  that  it  was 
nothing  but  a  compact  between  the  States,  and 
that  the  framers  of  it  commenced  their  work  with 
a  ho  in  their  mouths.  He  admitted  that  the  pre- 
amble used  the  words :  "  We,  the  people  of  the 
United  States,"  &c,  "in  order  to  form  a  more 
perfect  union" — a  union  more  intimate  and  per- 
fect than  had  been  effected  by  the  Articles  of 
Confederation — but  he  said  that  the  persons  who 
thus  sat  in  convention  were  delegated  by  the 
States,  and  that  they  merely  had  the  office  of 
"scriv  eners,"  and  that  the  instrument  which  was 
the  work  of  their  hands  was  nothing  more  than 
pro2JOsition  until  ratified  by  the  States  in  their 
sovereign  capacity.  He  committed  the  great  mis- 
take, as  I  conceive,  of  imagining  that  the  Union  of 
these  States,  and  the  Federal  Government,  which 
is  the  result  of  it,  is  nothing  more  than  the  con- 
federacy which  it  replaced,  or  a  compact  between 
sovereign  States,  which  may  be  dissolved  at  the 
pleasure  of  any  one  of  them,  and  it  is  to  that 
proposition  that  I  shall  proceed  to  address  myself. 

I  say  that  in  the  course  of  his  argument  he 
was  forced,  in  the  first  place,  to  admit  that  the 
recital  of  this  Constitution  declared  that  it  was 


the  work  of  the  people  of  the  States,  and  that 
they  were  welded  together  into  a  consolidated 
government  by  its  terms.  He  went  on  to  say 
that  because  the  instrument  which  declares  this 
thing  had  no  validity  until  it  was  ratified  by  the 
States  in  their  sepai-ate  and  sovereign  capacities, 
therefore — and  it  was  a  monstrous  non  sequitur — 
therefore  the  instrument,  being  so  ratified,  opera- 
ted not  according  to  its  tenor,  but  according  to  the 
idea  which  he  had,  I  wont  say  the  effrontery,  but 
the  hardihood  to  announce.  Why,  sir,  does  not 
every  lawyer — and  the  gentleman  is  an  able  one, 
an  ornament  to  the  bar,  and  administrator  of 
the  laws  on  the  bench — know  that  when  an 
act  of  an  agent  is  ratified  by  the  superior  authori- 
ty, that  ratification  has  relation  to  the  inception 
of  the  instrument,  and  makes  it  good  from  the 
beginning,  and  that,  when  the  act  of  an  agent  is 
thus  ratified,  it  is  ratified  according  to  the  terms 
and  tenor  of  the  act  itself ?  How  otherwise  can 
it  be  ?  Would  it  not  be  the  grossest  contradic- 
tion in  terms,  to  say  that  an  instrument 
which  is  a  certain  declaration,  or  which  declares 
that  there  is  a  surrender  by  States  previously 
sovereign  of  certain  of  their  sovereign  attributes; 
that  these  are  for  wise  and  patriotic  purposes, 
vested  in  a  central  government,  which  is  to  ad- 
minister them  for  the  common  good,  and  to  save 
the  country  from  those  evils  which  have  resulted 
from  the  imperfect  Union  which  this  perfect  and 
perpetual  Union  was  designed  to  replace— I  say 
it  is  not  a  contradiction  of  terms,  to  say  that  when 
this  solemn  act  is  thus  ratified  by  the  competent 
parties,  it  is  not  to  be  as  a  ratification  of  the  in- 
strument upon  its  face,  but  the  ratification  of 
something  entirely  different?  In  the  name  of 
common  sense,  what  does  ratification  mean? 
These  States  have  the  power  to  say  whether  this 
should  or  should  net  be  the  expression  of  their 
will.  They  declared  that  it  was,  and  by  virtue  of 
that  very  sovereignty  which  he  invokes,  they  had 
power  to  make  good  all  that  the  preamble  and 
the  various  sections  of  the  Constitution  declare; 
and  one  of  those  declarations  is,  that  it  is  the  act 
of  the  people,  and  makes  us  one  people. 

Mr.  Redd.  Is  it  not  to  be  looked  upon  rather 
as  an  estoppel? 

Mr.  Gantt.  No,  sir;  it  is  not  an  estoppel, 
but  a  direct  grant.  Estoppels  are  odious.  There 
is  no  occasion  to  invoke  them,  except  Avhen  other 
rules  of  interpretation  fail.  Well,  then,  this  being 
the  plain  import  of  the  instrument,  this  reference 
to  the  simple  meaning  and  wrorking  of  the  ratifi- 
cation, sufficiently  disposes  of  the  argument  of 
the  learned  gentleman  upon  that  subject.  It  is 
plain  that  this  instrument  is  what  it  professes  to 
be — that  it  makes  us  one  people  for  the  purpose 
of  a  General  Government,  though  for  the  pur- 
poses of  State  governments  we  are  thirty-four. 

It  has  seemed  to  me,  when  the  learned  gentle- 
man was  arguing  the  right  of  secession,  and  when 


137 


he  made  that  dependent  upon  the  supposed  ex- 
istence of  a  confederacy  of  States,  or  between 
sovereign  States,  and  not  upon  one  Central  Gov- 
ernment formed  by  the  surrender  of  some  of  those 
sovereign  attributes  which  were  enjoyed  by  the 
States  before  this  Central  Government  was  form- 
ed,— it  has  seemed  to  me  that  he  was  wasting  a 
good  deal  of  time  and  trouble,  unless  he  intended 
to  say  that  this  right  so  strongly  contended  for 
was  one  the  exercise  of  which  was  essential  at  the 
present  time.  However,  after  he  had,  to  his  own 
satisfaction,  (but  I  think  by  the  aid  only  of  a  fal- 
lacy which  has  been  sufficiently  exposed,)  main- 
tained that  this  right  existed,  he  went  ©n  to  de- 
clare that  its  exercise  would  be  unwise,  and  he 
proceeded  further  to  say  that  the  North  had  been 
guilty  of  great  aggressions  upon  the  South. 

Well,  here  my  friend  and  I  are  not  so  far  apart 
as  might  at  first  sight  appear.  He  is  very  much 
mistaken  if  he  fancies  that  I  stand  here  as  the 
apologist  of  the  Republican  party.  I  am  a  De- 
mocrat of  the  straitest  sect,  and  have  nothing 
in  common  with  the  peculiar  views  of  that 
party.  There  have  been  aggressions  beyond 
number,  and  a  spirit  of  meddlesomeness,  a 
spirit,  so  to  say,  of  Phariseeism,  has  been 
displayed  by  portions  of  that  party,  in 
their  conduct  towards  the  South,  which  is  in- 
tolerable to  me  as  a  Southern  man,  and  it  will 
not  be  endured.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  there 
have  been  acts  committed  on  the  part  of  the 
South,  which  are  unfortunately  almost  as  objec- 
tionable, perhaps  quite  as  much  so,  as  the  provo- 
cation to  which  they  owe  their  rise.  The  action 
of  the  North,  upon  the  subject  of  slavery,  has 
been,  in  my  judgment,  aggressive  in  the  first  in- 
stance; the  acting  of  the  South  has  been  re- 
taliatory, but  it  has  gone  bepond  the  limits  of  - 
a  just  defense.  But  I  am  coming  to  that  sub- 
ject again,  and  merely  wish  to  put  myself  right  on 
this  point,  for  when  I  speak  of  the  offenses  of 
which  the  North  has  been  guilty,  I  am  disposed 
to  echo  a  good  deal  of  what  the  gentleman  has 
said. 

I  will  not  stop  to  consider  what  he  said  re- 
specting the  law  of  nations,  as  applicable  to  the 
Southern  States,  because  I  have  shown  that  there 
was  no  such  compact  as  he  contends  for.  I  have 
shown  that  there  is  an  entirely  different  relation 
existing  between  the  members  of  this  Union, 
from  that  which  exists  by  virtue  of  a  compact 
between  sovereign  States. 

The  gentleman  has  said  that  if  the  South  had 
seceded  without  cause,  then  the  North  has  a  right 
to  coerce  her,  and  not  otherwise.  Now,  having 
shown  that  this  Government  is  not  a  compact — 
that  this  Union  is  not  a  Confederacy,  that  it  is 
something  which  has  replaced  the  Confederacy, 
and  which  made  it  for  all  the  purposes  enumera- 
ted in  its  preamble  an  entirely  different  thing— I 
have    disposed,  I    apprehend,   of  that    sacred 


right  of  secession.  But  did  not  the  gentleman 
see,  when  he  admitted  that  ?/ the  Southern  States 
have  seceded  without  cause,  the  States  of  the 
North  have  the  right  to  coerce  them ;  that  he  was 
opening  a  door  as  wide  to  civil  war  as  the  blood- 
iest advocate  of  what  is  sometimes  called  coer- 
cion could  passibly  have  done  ?  Who  is  to  be  the 
judge  of  "good  cause?"  Is  it  to  be  the  South? 
Is  it  to  be  the  North  ?  If  there  are  so  many  inde- 
pendent States  on  one  side,  and  so  many  on  the 
other,  differing  in  respect  to  that  "good  cause," 
and  there  is  no  common  arbiter,  what  shall  decide 
between  them  but  the  sword  ? 

Sir,  the  position  of  those  with  whom  I  have  the 
pleasure  of  acting  here,  is  far  more  satisfactory, 
and  looks  to  a  pacific  and  complete  solution  of 
tbis  troubled  question,  without  a  reference  to  that 
bloody  arbitrament.  We  think  that  the  General 
Government,  whose  laws,  made  in  accordance 
with  the  Constitution,  are  the  supreme  laws  of 
the  land,  is  for  all  the  purposes  ot  a  satisfactory 
settlement  in  contests  between  the  various  States, 
the  arbiter  whose  fiat  will  not  only  be  decisive 
but  peaceful.  But  to  that  matter  I  shall  come  a 
little  further  on.  * 

The  gentleman  next  proceeded  with  an  enum- 
eration of  the  grievances  of  which  the  South  had 
to  complain  at  the  hands  of  the  North.  He  spoke 
of  the  second  clause  of  the  second  section  of  the 
fourth  article  of  the  Constitution,  respecting  the 
surrender  of  fugitives  from  justice,  and  claimed, 
as  I  understood  him,  that  whereas  this  was  a 
binding  right — and  this  I  have  no  inclination 
whatever  to  deny— and  the  North  had  in  repeated 
instances  refused  to  comply  with  its  constitutional 
obligations,  the  South  had  never  done  anything 
of  the  kind.  Now,  it  did  so  happen  that  during 
the  past  winter  I  heard  a  discussion  upon  that 
very  point,  and,  fortunately  for  me,  for  it  saved 
me  a  little  trouble.  One  of  those  who  were  en- 
gaged in  that  discussion,  in  showing  that  the  fault 
was  not  entirely  on  one  side — as  in  what  human 
controversy  is  it  ? — showed  that  amongst  the  ear- 
liest violations  of  the  letter,  at  least,  of  that  pro- 
vision, of  the  Constitution  was  a  case  occurring 
in  Virginia.  Now,  I  say,  that  no  matter  in 
what  State,  when  or  where,  the  violation  oc- 
curs, if  it  does  occur  it  is  to  be  condemned. — 
I  am  satisfied  that  not  one  of  this  Conven- 
tion hears  me  who  does  not  echo  this  senti- 
ment. The  rights  which  that  Constitution  guar- 
anties must  be  not  only  sacredly  but  punc- 
tiliously observed,  if  there  is  to  be  a  continuance 
of  that  spirit  of  fraternal  amity,  without  which 
our  Union  may  indeed  exist,  but  can  never  an- 
swer the  purposes  for  which  it  was  designed.  So 
that  it  matters  not  to  me  whether  Virginia  or 
any  other  of  the  Southern  States,  or  the 
Northern  States  have  violated  that  provision. 
The  fact  only  shows  a  diseased  state  of  public 
morality,  which  must  be  cured  on  pain  of  death. 


138 


In  my  judgment  a  greater  number  of  violations 
of  that  sort  Lave  occurred  upon  the  part  of  our 
Northern  brethren.  Whenever  the  subiect  of  ne- 
gro slavery  has  been  the  bone  of  contention,  and 
a  demand  has  been  made  upon  a  Northern  Exec- 
utive for  the  rendition  of  a  fugitive  from  justice 
in  which  that  fugitive  was  charged  with  some  of- 
fense which  derived  its  felonious  character  from 
the  relation  between  master  and  slave,  there  has 
beeu  in  my  judgment  a  failure  to  comply  Avith 
the  spirit  of  the  Constitution  upon  that  subject, 
For  that,  I  say,  I  condemn  the  North.  I  call  their 
attention  to  that  violation,  and  I  say  that  that 
wrong  must  be  redressed,  or  worse  will  come  of  it. 
But  what  then?  Is  that  a  cause  for  secession?  I 
have  just  shown  that  the  right  of  secession  does 
not  exist.  But  if  the  right  did  exist,  I  will  say, 
is  that  a  cause  for  secession?  Could  reason  impel 
us  to  take  that  remedy  for  such  a  disease,  a  re- 
medy which  would  aggravate  tenfold  the  malady 
of  which  we  make  complaint?  What  compact, 
I  pray  you,  was  ever  made— what  Constitution— 
what  code  of  laws  has  ever  been  made  amongst 
taankind,  and  remained  in  force  for  twelve  months 
without  receiving  some  violation?  Are  we  to 
throw  away  this  fabric  of  government— are  we 
to  cast  aside  the  blessings  of  which  it  is  the  min- 
ister, because  there  are  bad  men  who  need  to  be 
punished  by  the  laws  for  which  that  Constitution 
hakes  provision. 

The  learned  gentleman  said  farther,  that  the 
Wth  has  been  tried  by  the  sentiments  of  Yancey 
tnd  other  extremists,  and  that  this  is  not  fair, 
[t  is  not  fair — he  is  right  in  saying  so.  It  is  not 
light  to  try  the  South  by  the  sentiments  of  such 
hen  as  Yancey,  and  Ithett,  and  Miles,  and  many 
others  -whom  I  might  name.  I  take  it  they  are  in 
a  very  small  minority  in  the  South.  But  on  the 
other  hand,  is  it  fair  to  try  the  Republicans 
>ither  by  anything  but  their  platform  ?  The  learn- 
ed gentleman  has  referred  to  the  sentiments 
frhich  have  been  expressed  by  what  he  called 
-n  element  of  that  party,  meaning,  I  suppose, 
be  Abolitionists,  of  whom  Phillips,  Garrison, 
and  Tappan  are  the  exponents.  Now,  I  recog- 
nize a  distinction  between  the  Republicans  and 
the  Abolitionists.  I  am  glad  to  recognize  that 
distinction,  for  if  I  supposed  that  the  Republican 
party  were  animated  by  the  same  sentiments 
which  those  Abolitionists  hold,  I  would  be  com- 
pelled to  the  conclusion  that  a  large  majority  of 
the  people  of  the  North  were  in  league  with  some 
of  the  worst  men  of  the  South,  to  put  into  actual 
practice  this  pestilent  doctrine  of  secession,  and 
overthrow,  beyond  remedy,  all  that  makes 
us  a  nation.  Those  men,  then,  to  whom 
he  makes  reference,  are  not  to  be  taken 
as  the  exponents  of  the  Republican  party. 
We  must  look  to  the  platform  of  that 
party;  the  platform  upon  which  Mr.  Lincoln 
was  nominated;  and  I  think  we  should  also,  in 


common  fairness,  look  at  the  votes  of  the  same 
party  in  Congress  during  the  last  session.  It  will 
be  altogether  a  departure  from  the  common  rules 
by  which  reasonable  men  are  guided,  to  try  any 
party  by  the  windy  rhetoric  or  uncharitable 
speeches  that  fall  from  the  lips  of  sensation  orators, 
who,  seeing  their  opponents  applauded  amongst 
a  crowd  for  a  sentiment  which  is  all  in  one  ex- 
treme, must  needs  outdo  their  rival  in  the  other 
extreme,  in  order  to  gain  the  popular  favor.  It 
will  not  do  to  try  a  large  party  by  the  utterance 
of  any  such  men,  to  say  nothing  of  the  fact  that 
no  one  yet  ever  knew  the  ins  and  the  outs  to 
speak  with  the  same  caution.  The  outs  are  ag- 
gressive and  bold;  they  have  no  responsibility 
upon  them;  but  the  ins,  or  those  that  get  into 
office,  feel  the  responsibility  of  their  words — they 
must  live  up  to  the  sentiments  which  they 
profess — and  they  are  therefore  careful  not  to  say 
anything  which  they  cannot  maintain.  Such, 
too,  has  been  the  conduct  of  the  Republican 
party.  My  friend  was  just  enough  to  that  party 
—for  whom  certainly  I  do  not  intend  to  be  the 
apologist— to  say  that  he  believed  them,  as  they 
now  stood  organized,  to  be  sincere  in  their  inten- 
tion, indicated  in  one  of  the  articles  of  their 
platform  that  they  would  not  interfere  with  sla- 
very in  the  States  in  which  it  existed  by  virtue  of 
the  municipal  law. 

He  then  proceeded  to  refer  to  the  affair  of  John 
Brown.  There,  again,  I  found  there  was  no  differ- 
ence of  opinion  between  him  and  me.  That  act  was 
viewed  by  me  with  the  same  abhorrence  which  I 
imagine  it  has  excited  in  the  minds  of  all  right- 
minded  men  of  the  North  and  the  South.  That  a 
number  of  persons  who  seemed  to  be  utterly  re- 
gardless of  their  duties  as  citizens — utterly  reck- 
less as  to  evil  consequences  of  the  most  demoral- 
izing sentiments,  did  speak  of  that  old  villain  as 
if  he  were  a  saint  and  amart3'r,  is  but  too  true,  and 
I  have  no  kind  of  doubt  that  the  exasperating  ef- 
fect of  such  language  as  that  has  led,  in  a  material 
manner,  to  the  fomenting  of  the  present  troubles. 
Undoubtedly,  no  unjust  or  false  word  is  said 
by  any  party,  no  injustice  or  wrong  is  done  by 
any  party,  without  bringing  its  bitter  fruits — per- 
haps upon  them  alone,  perhaps  upon  those  who 
are  innocent,  and  suffer  with  the  guilty  by  a  com- 
mon fate.  So  that,  upon  that  subject,  there  will 
not  be  much  in  the  sentiments  of  my  friend  to 
which  I  am  disposed  to  take  issue. 

He  passed  on  to  the  third  section  of  the 
fourth  article,  and  said  that  this  section  had  been 
systematically  violated  by  the  North.  Well,  it  is 
too  true  that  it  has  been  violated  in  a  most  nefa- 
rious manner;  and  if  I  did  not  believe  that  a  re- 
turning sense  of  justice,  that  a  condition  of  be- 
ing appalled  at  the  fearful  consequences  of  their 
wickedness,  was  now  seizing  upon  the  minds  of 
the  North,  I  should  do  -what  I  have  never  yet 
been  able  to  do— despair  of  the  Republic.    But  I 


139 


say  that  now  they  have  been  brought  fac3  to  face 
with  the  consequences,  that  now  their  most  solid 
men  have  taken  it  upon  themselves  to  examine 
and  condemn  the  unconstitutional  acts  of 
their  Legislatures,  and  that  a  sentence  of 
condemnation  has  gone  forth  throughout 
the  land — I  refer  you  particularly  to  that 
which  has  issued  from  the  city  of  Boston,  in 
which  such  men  as  Ex-Gov.  Gov.  Clifford,  and 
the  Ex-Chief  Justice  Shaw  declared,  in  the  most 
solemn  manner,  that  the-  personal  liberty  bill  of 
Massachusetts  could  not  remain  upon  the  statute 
books  without  a  violation  of  the  oath  which  every 
member  of  the  Massachusetts  Assembly  took  to 
preserve  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States.  Do 
we  not  seethe  fruits?  In  how  many  Northern 
States,  for  the  last  six  months,  have  not  those 
Personal  Liberty  bills  either  been  repealed  or  so 
far  advanced  to  repeal,  that  their  end  is  easy  to 
see  ?  Does  that  give  no  comfort  to  my  friend  ? 
Does  he  not  see  in  that  a  peaceable,  orderly  re- 
dress of  a  wrong — a  returning  sense  of  justice  on 
the  part  of  those  who  have  in  a  moment  of  mad- 
ness inflicted  that  wrong? 

Mr.  Redd.    I  do,  sir. 

Mr.  Gaxtt.  I  am  glad  that  he  agrees  with  me 
on  that  point,  also.  I  think,  then,  that  I  may 
properly  pass  to  another  breach  of  the  subject,  for 
it  is  conceded  that,  although  this  is  a  wrong  and 
a  source  of  irritation,  and  a  very  great  one,  yet  it 
furnishes  no  cause  for  the  secession  of  which  the 
Southern  States  have  given  us  an  example- 

The  gentleman  said  that  many  of  the  States  of 
the  North  had  passed  personal  liberty  bills  with 
the  avowed  object  of  making  slaves  free.  Now, 
I  think  he  is  wrong  in  that.  I  have  looked  into 
those  statutes,  and  in  no  instance  have  I  ever 
seen  thai  purpose  avowed.  The  gentleman  will 
correct  me,  if  mistaken  in  this  statement.  If  he 
can  furnish  the  name  of  the  State,  or  the  date  of 
any  statute  in  which  such  purpose  is  declared,  I 
now  ask  him  to  inform  me. 

Mr.  Redd.  I  do  not  recollect  the  date.  When 
I  spoke  I  alluded  particularly  to  the  statute  of 
Maine,  which  not  only  declared  the  slave  free, 
but  provided  a  law  whereby  the  master  was  pun- 
ished as  a  felon  for  attempting  to  reclaim  him.  I 
think  it  was  passed  in  1858,  but  I  am  not  certain. 

Mr.  Gaxtt.  I  think  my  friend  is  mistaken. 
I  think  the  style  of  the  act  indicates  the  purpose 
which  was  declared  on  its  face.  The  avowed  ob- 
ject was  to  protect  their  citizens  against  being 
kidnapped ;  but  that,  in  my  judgment,  does  not 
make  the  mater  a  great  deal  better,  for  I  am  quite 
satisfied  in  my  mind  that  by  reason  of  that  avow- 
al they  only  added  the  sin  of  hypocrisy  to  that  of 
violating  the  Constitution.  I  am  quite  satisfied 
that  it  was  the  purpose  of  the  framers  of  the  laws 
to  enable  bad  men  to  put  in  the  way  of  the  master 
who  came  to  reclaim  his  slave  every  possible  ob- 
stacle; to  make  it  an  expensive  and  dangerous 


business  to  him,  and,  in  short,  to  make  any  one 
who  was  not  most  resolute,  come  to  the  conclusion 
that  he  had  a  great  deal  better  acquiesce  in  the 
loss  of,  than  attempt  to  recover,  his  property.  I  say 
that  I  will  use  the  strongest  language  of  which  I 
am  master  in  condemning  such  legislation— in  de- 
nouncing such  a  spirit,  and  in  declaring  that  if  this 
Union  is  to  be  what  it  was  in  times  past,  that  legis- 
lation and  that  conduct  must  cease.  As  to  the  par- 
ticular statute  of  Maine,  that  can  only  be  determin- 
ed by  reference  to  the  statute  book,  and  both  my 
friend  and  myself  are  too  much  of  lawyers,  and 
too  partial  to  the  habits  of  accuracy,  which  the 
practice  of  our  profession  encourages,  to  be  willing 
to  discuss  the  import  of  an  act  without  having  the 
written  letter  before  us.  I  will  then  say  nothing 
more  upon  this  subject  until  I  have  had  an  op- 
portunity of  examining  that  book. 

The  gentleman  next  passed  on  to  say  that  the 
South  has  been  excluded  from  the  Territories.  I 
asked  myself  when  I  heard  that  remark,  "from 
which  of  them?"  I  know  that  in  the  Territories 
wdiich  have  been  most  recently  organized,  no 
such  exclusion  has  bern  found,  aud  I  really  did 
not  think  that  the  Oregon  bill  was  opposed  by 
the  votes  of  Southern  men.  David  R.  Atchi- 
son is  supposed  to  be  rather  sound  upon  this 
particular  subject.  Mr.  Green  is  supposed  to  be 
sound,  upon  this  point  at  least;  and  it  was  such 
men  as  those  in  the  two  houses  of  Congress  who 
voted  for  that  bill,  and  Jas.  K.  Polk  of  Tennes- 
see, approved  it.  This  bill  was  adduced  by  my 
friend  as  one  measure  of  which  the  South  had  to 
complain;  and  after  having  done  so,  he  said  he 
did  not  complain  of  it  because  Southern  men  ac- 
quiesced in  it.    Then  why  enumerate  it? 

He  also  spoke  of  the  Missouri  compromise  bill. 
That,  too,  was  passed  by  Southern  votes.  And 
here  let  me  say  that  one.of  the  most  serious  mis- 
fortunes that  ever  happened  the  South  was  that 
they  could  get  Northern  votes  enough  to  co-oper- 
ate with  them  in  sweeping  away  that  compro- 
mise, thereby  violating  that  sound  rule  of  states- 
manship, which  warns  us  quieta  non  movere, 
that  tells  us  that  the  true  plan  is  not  to  disturb 
a  settlement  which  has  answered  its  purpose  and 
been  acquiesced  in  for  a  long  time. 

In  all  the  territories  which  have  been  recently 
organized,  we  look  in  vain  to  see  any  of  this  ex- 
clusion of  which  the  gentleman  speaks ;  and  if  he 
means  what  the  popular  orators  of  the  party  have 
said  upon  the  hustings,  I  must  answer  that  I  pay 
no  more  regard  to  the  sentences  of  exclusion  pro- 
ceeding from  such  sources  than  I  would  to  the 
whistlings  of  the  idle  wind. 

Mr.  Redd.  I  think  the  gentleman  misappre- 
hends me.  I  did  not  enumerate  those  acts  as 
grievances.  I  said  the  question  had  been  asked, 
and  the  proposition  laid  down  on  this  floor,  that 
the  General  Government  had  never  violated  the 


140 


Constitution,  but  that  in  that  proposition  I  could 
not  acquiesce. 

Mr.  Gantt.  Do  you  refer  to  the  report? 

Mr.  Redd.  No,  sir,  to  the  argument  of  speak- 
ers on  this  floor.  I  take  the  position  that  those 
bills  did  militate  against  the  interests  of  the 
South,  but  that  the  South  does  not  complain  of 
them,  because  she  acquiesced  in  them. 

Mr.  Gantt.  I  do  not  think  it  was  said  on  this 
floor  that  the  General  Government  had  never 
violated  the  Constitution  upon  this  subject.  But 
it  was  said,  and  I  think  the  assertion  can  be  very- 
well  maintained,  that  the  General  Government 
has  never,  upon  the  subject,  discriminated  un- 
constitutionally against  the  rights  of  the  South.  If 
it  passed  the  Missouri  Compromise,  at  whose  in- 
stance was  it  passed?  If  it  passed  the  Oregon 
bill,  who  asked  for  the  passage  of  that  bill  and 
acquiesced  in  its  passage  ?  Will  it  be  fair  that 
a  man,  or  community,  or  party,  or  section,  shall 
first  ask  for  the  particular  action  of  any  body 
else,  and  then  complain  of  that  action  ?  Certain- 
ly not.  I  think  then,  that  part  of  the  gentleman's 
argument  is  sufficiently  answered. 

But  it  was  said  that  the  natural  consequence  of 
the  organization  of  the  Territories  and  the 
exclusion  of  slaves  therefrom,  as  contemplated 
by  the  Republican  party,  would  be  that  at  the 
end  of  thirty  years  the  Northern  States  would 
have  such  a  majority  that  they  could  alter  the 
Constitution  at  their  pleasure,  and  that  they 
would  use  the  power  thus  acquired  for  the  over- 
throw of  the  peculiar  institution  of  the  South.  So 
far  the  gentleman  went  in  his  statement.  I  did 
not  directly  understand,  however,  the  conclusion 
that  was  deduced  from  the  establishment  of  that 
proposition.  I  did  not  understand  him  to  say 
that  because  he  had  some  reason  to  fear  that 
trouble  would  happen  at  the  end  of  thirty  years, 
therefore  it  was  wise  to  precipitate  now  all  the 
calamities  which  an  active  imagination  might 
lead  us  to  apprehend  as  possible  after  thirty  years. 
But  if  he  had  said  it,  with  all  possible  respect  for 
him,  I  think  that  I  may  say  that  the  position 
would  have  required  no  answer.  If  it  be  better  to 
bear  the  ills  we  have  than  to  fly  to  others  that  we 
know  not  of,  how  much  more  certain  is  it  that  it 
is  a  great  deal  better  not  to  precipitate  ourselves 
into  certain  calamity,  because  at  the  end  of  a  long 
period  it  is  possible  that  that  same  calamity  may, 
perad venture,  come  upon  us. 

"The  South  has  been  rash  and  hasty  in  its  ac- 
tion, but  are  not  traitors,  unless  our  sires  in  '76 
were  traitors;"  he  further  proceeds  to  say.  I  must 
say  that  I  object  to  that.  I  must  say  that  I  ob- 
ject to  taking  the  names  of  those  whom  he  must 
pardon  me  if  I  will  call  traitors — I  now  refer  to 
Yancey,  and  others  of  the  same  stripe— he  must 
pardon  me  if  I  say  that  I  cannot  endure  to  have 
their  names  taken  in  the  same  breath  with  those  of 
the  venerated  men  who  lived  in  and  adorned  the 


former  period  of  history.  The  men  of  '76  revolted 
against  oppression.  They  rose  to  throw  off  a  tyran- 
ny which  was  too  great  to  be  endured.  They  rose 
to  throw  off  a  degree  of  misgovernment  which 
Heaven  never  intended  that  man  should  bear — 
which  never,  in  particular,  it  was  designed  that 
the  Anglo  Saxon  race  should  bear — the  most 
jealous  race  on  earth  of  its  liberties  and  rights. 
They  endured  until  endurance  could  no  longer 
be,  and  then,  in  a  reiigious,  patriotic  spirit, 
and  in  a  calm,  dignified  manner,  appealed  to  the 
god  of  battles.  Has  anything  like  that  action  dis- 
tinguished the  men  of  the  present  day  in  the 
South?  I  am  afraid  I  should  be  out  of  order,  if  I 
should  speak  of  them  as  I  feel.  So  far  from  their 
having  any  real  grievances  to  redress,  for  years 
past,  sir,  there  has  been  an  industrious  manu- 
facture of  every  pretense  upon  which  discontent 
could  be  founded— the  schemers!  the  pests!— by 
which  the  "  Southern  mind  could  be  educated, 
the  Southern  heart  fired,  and  an  opportune  mo- 
ment seized  to  precipitate  the  cotton  States  into 
revolution."  That  base  design  has  been  impu- 
dently avowed,  and  I  am  sorry  to  say  it 
has  not  met  with  universal  condemnation; 
but,  thank  God,  it  is  almost  universal. 
What  has  been  the  course  of  the  States 
in  pursuance  of  the  design  of  that  architect 
of  mischief,  Mr.  Yancey  ?  Why,  after  South  Caro- 
lina had  seceded,  after  she  had  declared,  through 
one  of  her  Representatives,  that  if  the  whole 
North  could  sign  a  blank  sheet  of  paper,  and 
give  it  to  South  Carolina  to  write  her  conditions 
upon— the  conditions  on  which  she  would  be  con- 
tent to  remain  faithful  to  her  obligations  as  a 
State  in  the  Union— still  that  instrument  would 
not  suffice,  still  it  would  not  do;  and  South  Caro- 
lina,^ taking  her  position,  virtually  said  this  to 
the  North :  "  We  are  going  out;  nothing  can  stop 
us,  and  no  concessions,  no  modifications,  no 
amendments  of  the  Constitution,  can  prevail  up- 
on us  to  remain  in  the  Union."  I  believe  Georgia 
was  the  next  in  order,  But  how  was  the  seces- 
sion of  Georgia  brought  about  ?  Who  that  remem- 
bers that  Georgia  was  one  of  the  States  of  the 
Union,  that  her  citizens  are  American  citizens,  that 
amongst  them  are  those  two  illustrious  men,  Ste- 
phens and  Hill— and  others,  too,  (but  I  can  never 
mention  the  names  of  those  two  men  without 
gratitude  and  reverence,  and  for  their  sakes  I 
hesitate  to  speak  otherwise  than  in  a  kindly  spirit 
of  Georgia, )  can  think  without  a  blush^of  shame 
that  the  most  infamous  falsehoods  were  sent  over 
the  telegraph,  in  order  to  precipitate  the  passage  of 
the  act  of  secession  by  the  Convention  ?  It  was  re- 
ported through  the  telegraph,  that  the  Federal 
Government  had  sent  an  army  to  Charleston :  that 
operations  were  commenced  by  the  bombardment 
of  that  city;  that  old  men,  helpless  children  and 
women  were  being  slaughtered  by  the  hundred; 
that  the  city  was  in  flames— in  short,  all  the  hor- 


141 


rors  which  attend  upon  the  most  bloody  war,  were 
declared  to  exist  there,  and  by  the  act  of  a  tyran- 
nous Federal  Executive,  and  under  the  influence 
of  that  lie — that  infamous  lie — the  Convention  of 
Georgia  was  induced  to  pass  its  ordinance  of  seces- 
sion. It  is  not  so  very  unnatural  that,  under 
such  a  monstrous  misrepresentation,  hasty  and 
unjustifiable  action  might  have  been  had.  But 
what  I  do  say  is,  that  it  is  reprehensible  that 
when  those  members  who  voted  for  that  ordi- 
nance found  they  had  done  so  under  the  influence 
of  a  villainous  misrepresentation,  they  did  not 
move  for  a  reconsideration.* 

I  believe,  Mr.  President,  that  whatever  the 
politicians  of  the  States  of  Georgia,  Ala- 
bama, and  oth  ers,  have  done,  if  the  peo- 
ple of  those  States  could  havebeen  pro- 
perly consulted,  different  results  would  have 
appeared.  I  think  the  people  have  had  a  pro- 
digiously small  share  in  the  acts  of  secession. 
Nothing,  indeed,  is  more  striking  in  reviewing 
the  history  of  this  sad  crisis  than  the  degree  to 
which  political  jugglers  have  deposed  the  people 
from  their  rightful  supremacy,  and  impudently 
told  them  that  they  were  stripped  of  power,  and 
henceforth  are  to  be  merely  subordinate.  Look 
at  Alabama.  At  the  election  for  delegates  to  the 
Convention  which  was  to  take  into  consideration 
the  relations  between  Alabama  and  the  Federal 
Government,  less  than  one-third  of  the  votes  cast 
in  November  were  cast,  on  both  sides,  for  and 
against  the  members  of  the  Convention.  Of  that 
one-third  three-fifths  were  given  to  candidates  in 
favor  of  secession,  and  two-fifths  for  Unionists  or 
co-operationists,  (for  that  is  about  theboldest  name 
that  even  good  and  true  men  can  take  in  this 
Southern  reign  of  terror,)  so  that  three-fifths 
of  one-third  —  equal  to  one-fifth  of  the  whole 
popular  vote— actually  represents  the  proportion 
of  the  State  of  Alabama  which  was  in  favor  of 
going  out  of  the  Union. 

One  of  the  gentlemen  who  preceded  me,  said 
that  he  looked  confidently  to  the  time  when  the 
people  of  those  much  injured  Southern  States 
would  march  back  into  the  Union  over  the  bodies 
of  the  traitors  who  had  thus  misrepresented  the 
popular  wishes.  And  I  think  that  that  is  literally 
true.  The  time  will  come,  and  I  expect  it  will 
come  before  I  am  gray,  when  those  States  will 
come  back,  bringing,  if  necessary,  the  heads  of 
those  traitors  with  them,  and  offering  them  as  a 
peace  offering. 

While  the  gentleman  contended  for  the  right  of 
secession,  he  admitted  that  its  exercise  at  the 

Note.— Mr.  Gantt  desired  to  be  noted  here  that  it  has 
been  suggested  to  him  by  a  friend  that  these  lying  tele- 
grams -were  put  in  use  for  the  purpose  of  influencing  the 
election  of  the  convention,  not  the  action  of  that  body 
after  it  was  elected.— Mr.  Gantt  spoke  from  recollection 
of  the  matter,  and  stated  in  the  newspaper  at  the  time ; 
and  the  matter  may  very  Avell  be,  as  indicated  by  the  cor- 
rection, for  which  he  makes  his  acknowledgments. 


present  time  was  not  advisable;  but,  said  he,  if 
the  time  ever  should  come  when  the  people  of 
Missouri  would  be  deprived  of  their  rights,  and 
it  would  become  necessary  for  the  purpose  of  re- 
sisting intolerable  oppression,  to  dissolve  our  con- 
nection with  the  General  Government,  he  would 
offer  an  ordinance  of  secession.  Well,  it  is  im- 
possible to  find  much  fault  with  a  proposition  so 
carefully  guarded.  When  that  time  comes,  when 
the  oppression  of  the  Federal  Government  be- 
comes intolerable,  why,  no  doubt,  we  shall  do 
many  things — in  short,  when  the  sky  falls,  we 
shall  catch  larks !  But,  in  the  meantime,  it  is  most 
unwise  to  speculate  as  to  such  action  upon  an  hy- 
pothesis which  never  may  happen;  for  the  hap- 
pening of  which  there  is  no'political  prob  ability. 

Now,  I  believe  I  have  gone  over  the  main  points 
advanced  by  the  gentleman,  and  given  my  reasons 
for  what  I  regard  as  a  political  heresy,  namely, 
the  idea  that  this  nation  is  a  compact  of  States 
and  not  a  Union. 

As  to  the  amendment  now  pending,  I  will  say 
that  it  legitimately  brings  up  all  the  topics  which 
we  can  fairly  consider  in  connection  with  the  re- 
lation which  Missouri  occupies  to  the  National 
Government. 

Mr.  Broadhead  moved  to  adjourn. 

The  President  laid  before  the  Convention  a 
communication  from  the  Directors  of  the  Agri- 
cultural and  Mechanical  Association,  offering  to 
present  each  member  with  a  copy  of  their  Fifth 
Annual  Report,  if  acceptable. 

Convention  then  adjourned. 


THIRTEENTH  DAY. 

St.  Louis,  March  15th,  1861 

Met  at  10  o'clock,  a.  3r. 

Mr.  President  in  the  Chair. 

Prayer  by  the  Chaplain.  - 
1  Journal  read  and  approved. 

Mr.  Gantt.  When  the  Convention  adjourned 
yesterday  I  had  just  got  through  some  desultory 
remarks  in  reply  to  the  argument  advanced  by 
the  gentleman  from  Marion,  (Mr.  Redd,)  upon 
the  action  of  the  Government  under  which  we 
live,  and  as  to  the  principles  on  which  the  Con- 
stitution had  been  formed,  and  the  Union  which 
was  created  by  it.  I  then  passed  on  to  consider 
some  further  remarks  that  he  made  respecting 
the  laws  which  had  been  passed  by  some  of  the 
Northern  States,  and  in  the  course  of  my  reply 
to  what  fell  from  him  on  that  subject,  I  said  I 
thought  he  had  overstated  the  matter  when  he 
said  some  of  these  States  had  laws  which  had 
been  passed  avowedly  for  the  purpose  of  taking 
away  from  the  slaveholder  his  right  of  property 
in  the  slave.  I  said  I  was  not  aware  of  any  statute 
on  that  subject  in  any  Northern  State,  or  any 
State  which  dared  to  adopt  such  audacious  trea- 
son, as  he  supposed,  and  I  called  upon  him  to 


142 


name  the  State  which  had  been  guilty  of  so  fla- 
grant a  violation  of  constitutional  duty.  He 
said  the  State  he  had  in  his  mind  when  making 
the  charge  was  the  State  of  Maine,  and  that  the 
act  in  question  passed  the  Legislature  of  that 
State  in  the  year  1858,  or  thereabouts.  Well,  if 
any  act  passed  the  Legislature  of  Maine  in  1858, 
I  can  only  say  that  I  have  no  means  of  know- 
ledge upon  the  subject,  seeing  that  the  Revised 
Statutes  of  Maine,  which  are  in  the  Law  Library 
in  this  city,  which  has  a  tolerably  full  collection 
of  books,  come  down  to  the  year  1857  inclusive, 
and  not  further.  But  in  that  volume  I  did  find 
an  act,  which  must  be  the  one  to  which  the  gen- 
tlemen had  reference,  and  I  am  glad  to  be  able  to 
say  that,  upon  examination  of  that  act,  there  is 
nothing;  in  it  of  the  character  which  he  imputed 
to  it,  but  that  it  is  a  law  against  kidnapping, 
draAvn  up  in  almost  the  identical  terms  with 
the  law  which  we  have  upon  our  own  Statutes 
upon  the  same  subject,  writh  this  difference  only: 
that  whereas  our  statute  punishes  the  offense  by 
imprisonment  in  the  penitentiary  for  a  term 
not  exceeding  ten  years,  that  of  Maine  pun- 
ishes the  offense  by  imprisonment  for  a  term 
not  exceeding  five  years,  with  the  alterna- 
tive of  a  fine  of  $1,000.  That  is  the  act 
which  has  been  so  much  misunderstood.  Ano- 
ther section,  the  29th  of  the  Maine  Statute,  refers 
to  the  relation  of  master  and  slave,  but  it  merely 
says  that  any  person  who  is  a  slave  owner,  volun- 
tarily bringing  or  allowing  to  be  brought  into  the 
State  of  Maine,  any  slave  to  him  belonging,  will 
thereby  forfeit  his  right — that  is  to  say,  any  per- 
son contravening  the  law  of  the  State,  in  respect 
to  that  matter,  by  bringing  his  slave  into  that 
State,  shall  be  stripped  of  all  the  means  of  enforc- 
ing his  right  to  the  possession  of  that  slave  in 
that  State.  Now,  Mr.  President,  upon  this  sub- 
ject I  will  say  that  while  I  am  glad  there  is  noth- 
ing in  the  phraseology  of  the  act  to  which  I  have 
referred  to  which  any  exception  can  be  taken,  yet 
we  must  bear  constantly  in  mind  that  it  is  not  so 
much  the  law  on  the  subject  as  it  is  the  spirit  in 
which  it  is  administered,  which  makes  the  diffi- 
culty. Who  has  ever  found  any  disturbance  to 
arise  from  a  violation  of  the  rights  of  property 
nder  our  act?  Yet,  will  any  person  contend 
that  kidnapping  is  tolerated  in  Missouri? 
I  think  not — and  if  similar  laws  upon  the  same 
subject,  of  equal  or  greater  or  less  severity  in 
other  States  were  executed  in  the  same  spirit  as 
our  own,  no  complaint  would  be  likely  to  arise- 
but  laws  like  these,  like  any  other  legislation, 
may  be  made  the  pretext  of  a  persecution  by 
persons  of  a  malicious  character,  or  under  color 
of  the  law  may  be  made  to  work  the  greatest  in- 
justice, and  that  is  the  thing  of  which  our  breth- 
ren at  the  South  have  mainly  complained;  and 
of  which  they  have  the  greatest  right  to  com- 
plain; and  while  I  maintain  that,  iustice  requires 


that  we  should  not  be  blind  to  the  fact  that 
there  are  also  abuses  of  a  flagrant  character  upon 
the  rights  of  Northern  -men  in  the  Southern 
States,  not  by  legislation,  but  by  mob  law.  Upon 
this  very  subject,  let  me  say,  that  in  the  year 
1835,  or  thereabouts,  a  commissioner  was  sent 
to  one  of  the  Southern  States  for  the  purpose  of 
bringing  to  the  test  of  a  judicial  decision  by  the 
Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States,  the  consti- 
tutionality of  a  law  which  required  that  when 
any  colored  seaman  came  to  the  ports  of  that 
State,  or  to  any  town  in  that  State,  such  seaman 
should  be  committed  to  jail  during  the  stay  of 
the  vessel  in  that  port,  and  discharged  from  con- 
finement only  when  the  vessel  was  ready  to 
weigh  anchor.  One  of  the  Northern  States  wish- 
ed to  bring  the  constitutionality  of  that  act  to  a 
judicial  decision.  For  that  purpose  they  dis- 
patched a  commissioner  to  the  Southern  State, 
with  instructions  to  make  a  case  the  moment  any 
one  hailing  from  the  State  he  represented  might 
be  seized  under  that  act.  Now  all  of  us  have  rea- 
son to  deplore  that  the  course  of  law  Avas  not 
allowed  on  that  occasion.  If  the  act  was  consti- 
tutional, the  question  would  have  been  settled 
finally.  I  believe  the  act  was  constitutional, 
for,  not  recognizing  those  colored  persons  as  citi- 
zens, I  am  of  opinion  that  the  Legislature  of  the 
State  from  which  they  came,  could  not  clothe 
them  with  the  privileges  of  citizenship  in  the 
other  States  of  the  Union,  and  believing  that,  I 
think  the  decision  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  the 
United  States  would  have  declared  the  constitu- 
tionality of  that  act,  in  a  satisfactory  manner 
and  so  would  have  put  at  rest  the  angry  pas- 
sions to  which  that  act  gave  rise,  wkere  the 
Constitution  was  misunderstood;  but  instead 
of  a  regular  course  of  law  being  allowed, 
mob  violence  was  resorted  to  and  the  com- 
missioner was  forced  to  leave  the  State  to 
which  I  have  alluded.  He  was  there  with  a 
portion  of  his  family,  a  female  portion  too,  if 
I  recollect,  and  passage  was  taken  for  him  and 
his  family,  upon  a  vessel  bound  for  the  State  to 
which  he  belonged,  and  he  was  advised  to  go 
back  home  and  return  no  more.  That  act  of 
violence  is  deeply  to  be  deplored  on  all 
grounds;  chiefly  because  it  retarded  the  decisive 
settlement  of  this  controverted  question  by  the 
supreme  constitutional  arbiter,  but  also  because 
the  mode  of  preventing  this  settlement,  which  was 
adopted  by  South  Carolina,  was  liable  to  the  great- 
est objection.  And  that  brings  me  to  the  considera- 
tion of  the  question,  which  is  the  most  important 
one  that  has  been  considered  in  the  course  of  this 
debate.  I  think  I  have  sufficiently  shown,  or  that 
it  was  sufficiently  clear  before  any  one  attempted 
to  demonstrate  it,  and  the  argument  is  so  familiar 
that  I  feel  ashamed  to  present  it  to  an  assembly, 
composed  in  a  large  measure  of  jurists  and  law- 
yers— it  is,  I  say,  abundantly  plain,  that  the  Con- 


143 


stitrtfion  of  the  United  States,  which  makes  this 
Union,  is  the  net  of  the  people,  and  is  the  expres- 
sion of  the  supreme  will,  according  to  it*  tenor; 
it  is  the  supreme  law  of  the  land;  and  the  Feder- 
al power  acquired  by  it  extends  judically  to  all 
cases  ftrtemg  under  the  Constitution  and  laws 
which  oiay  i>e  made,  or  to  any  treaty  into  which 
the  Unired  States  may  enter.  This  being  the  case, 
the  Federal  Government  being  as  essentially 
a  Government,  which  was  secured  by  the  people 
of  the  whole  United  States,  as  in  the  strictest 
sense  any  State  government  can  be  said  to  be ; 
and  being  in  its  own  sphere  supreme  over  the 
government  of  any  State :  That  being  the  case, 
no  one — no  individual  in  the  States  of  the  thirty- 
four  which  comprise  this  Union,  can  oppose  any 
law  of  the  United  States,  or  any  provision  of  the 
Constitution,  without  being  guilty  of  an  obstruc- 
tion of  legal  process,  of  treason,  revolution,  or  in- 
surrection, according  to  the  circumstances. 

Such  being  the  legal  aspect  of  secession, 
what  is  its  moral  aspect.  We  know  that  by  com- 
mon law,  treason  is  the  highest  crime  of  which 
the  law  takes  cognizance— the  sum  of  all  human 
■criminality.  Now,  has  treason  lost  any  of  its  sig- 
nificance— is  it  any  less  an  attempt  to  overthrow 
that  which  should  be  sacred  than  it  was 
when  the  common  law  was  the  rule  of  in- 
terpretation and  government?  What  is  it  that 
constitutes  the  turpitude  Or  moral  blackness 
of  any  act?  I  could,  without  any  offence  so 
without  any  violation  of  riurht  or  law  light  this 
piece  of  paper  that  I  hold  in  my  hand,  and 
throw  it  upon  this  table;  but  suppose  that  instead 
of  this  table  a  mine  of  powder  should  occupy  its 
place.  By  touching  it  with  a  match,  I  would 
destroy  the  lives  of  all  in  this  building.  If  I 
should  commit  airy  act  which  would  destroy  life, 
I  should  be  branded  justly  as  one  of  the  worst 
possible  criminals — but  I  would  be  much  more 
than  an  ordinary  murderer  by  the  commission  of 
this  act,  for  T  should  strike  against  the  lives  not 
only  of  those  who  are  dearest  to  me,  of  my  par- 
ticular friends  and  acquaintances,  but  I  should 
strike  against  the  lives  of  many  whom  I  do  not 
know  at  all,  and  involve  hundreds  in  common 
■destruction  by  the  act  which  I  have  imagined.  So, 
then,  such  a  deed  as  that  would  be  far  worse  than 
ordinary  murder,  and  I  need  not  waste  words  to 
show  how  detestable  an  ordinary  murderer  is. 

But  what  would  be  the  offense  of  blowing  this 
building  with  all  in  it  into  atoms,  compared 
with  the  unspeakable  criminality  of  striking  at 
the  solidity  of  a  Government,  which  it  is  no 
figure  of  ihctoric  to  say  is  the  last  hope  of  man- 
kind? If  this  great  experiment  fails  — 
<and  the  eyes  of  the  world  are  upon  us) — I  say 
if  this  ^reat  experiment  fails,  I  cannot  say  who 
may  weep,  but  all  the  fiends  will  laugh,  and  the 
friends  of  arbitrary  government,  the  oppressors 
of  human  rights,  the  deriders  of  every  scheme 


of  human  government  that  does  not  count  upon 
the  sword,  the  fetter  and  the  dungeon,  will  exult 
p-nd  point  to  America  as  an  illustration  of  a  most 
miserable  failure  of  the  great  experiment  of 
self-government,  tried  under  the  most  favora- 
ble circumstances.  We  have  every  circumstance 
|  in  aid  of  its  success,  and  if  it  is  to  be  destroyed 
|  by  the  evil  passions  and  the  base  motives  of 
a  few  conspirators  against  the  will  o  an  im- 
mense maiority,  while  the  experiment  itself 
is  in  all  material  respects  in  the  full  tide 
of  success,  then  the  oppressors  of  human  rights 
may  Avell  laugh  the  experiment  to  scorn. — 
I  say  then,  Mr.  President,  when  Ave  come  to  the 
consideration  of  this  most  important  question — 
when  we  consider  not  only  the  legal  bearing  of 
the  matter,  but  the  moral  aspect  of  treason  which 
is  embodied  in  the  word  secession — when  we  con- 
sider these  things  Ave  must  either  be  duller  than 
the  stones  beneath  our  feet  or  anVe  to  the  tre- 
mendous consequences  and  Avickedness  of  the 
act  by  which  so  few  can  inflict  everlasting 
injury  on  so  many.  A  great  deal  of  noise  has 
been  made  by  these  secessionists— but  thank  God 
they  are  few,  and  whemrer  the  people  haAre  been 
permitted  to  speak  their  views,  the  vote  in  fa- 
vor of  treason  has  been  insignificantly  small,'and 
has  resulted  triumphantly  in  favor  of  those  Avho 
wish  to  sustain  the  institutions  Avhich  our  fore- 
fathers have  handed  doAvn  to  us.  For  these  rea- 
sons, I  think  Ave  are  justified  in  concluding  that 
the  great  noise  which  has  been  made,  proceeds 
from  a  very  few  bla:k  and  guilty  throats. 

What  Avould  be  the  ccn-equence  of  the  con- 
clusions to  which  the  gentleman  from  Marion 
came?  If  ona  of  the  States  possesses  the  right  at 
Avill,  to  retire  from  the  Confederacy,  and  to  as- 
sume that  the  compact  can  be  broken  at  will,  and 
declare  that  it  is  no  longer  binding — that  is,  it  is 
at  liberty  to  secede  from  the  (I  do  not  like  to  use 
the  word  Confederacy,  for  it  is  not  one)  Union 
of  Avhich  it  is  a  part,  and  take  Avhat  course  may 
seem  good  in  its  OAvn  mind;  I  say  Avhat  Avould 
be  the  result  of  that?  Why  the  old  maxim 
of  philosophy  that  out  of  nothing  nothing  can 
come,  Avould  be  entirely  refuted,  for  it  Avould  be 
certainly  true  that  if  that  construction  be 
the  correct  one,  the  fact  AArculd  be  established  that 
there  never  Avas  such  a  sham  palmed  upon  the 
world  as  this  idea  of  a  General  Government; 
as  .this  notion  that  Ave  have  any  such  thing 
as  a  General  Goveinment  at  all.  Accord- 
ing to  that  construction  we  have  no  Federal 
Government,  and  never  had  one  —  for  that 
Avhich  Ave  have  supposed  to  be  such  has 
no  power,  and  Avhat  is  a  Government 
that  has  no  power  to  execute  its  laws? 
Nothing  whatever.  Then  according  to  that 
doctrine  we  have  no  Government  at  all,  and 
the  people  of  the  nations  of  the  earth  Avho  have 
heretofore  looked  upon  us  Avith  envy  and  admira- 


144 


tion,  have  been  sadly  imposed  upon  by  a  glitter- 
ing make-believe.  The  most  signal  results  of 
which  ancient  or  modern  history  speaks,  have 
been  effected  by  a  shadow  and  a  mockery. — 
Achievements  in  every  department  of  human  ex- 
ertion, erroneously  attributed  to  our  glorious  in- 
stitutions, have  been  due  to  a  delusion  into  which 
the  whole  world,  along  with  ourselves  has  fallen. 
This  explanation  of  the  matter  furnishes  an 
apology  for  the  action  of  the  school  of  which 
that  gentleman  is  an  exponent — for  if  we  have 
no  federal  or  central  power  there  can  be  no 
crime  in  overthrowing  that  which  has  no  exist- 
ence, and  if  there  be  no  such  thing,  there  is  no 
danger  of  being  subjected  to  the  offense  of  treas- 
on. But  the  fact  is,  the  vanishing  nature  of  that 
argument  displays  itself  most  clearly  when  a 
blow  is  made  at  it.  You  may  strike  the  blow 
but  the  blow  falls  upon  empty  air.  The  gentle- 
man from  Marion,  in  his  argument,  contended 
that  inasmuch  as  the  Constitution  was  framed  by 
a  body  which  had  no  authority  denned  by  any 
authentic  or  accepted  instrument  on  the  part  of  the 
American  people;  and  as  that  body  did  not  claim 
for  its  own  acts  any  binding  force  until  the  same 
were  ratified  by  the  States  which  sent  them  to 
meet  together  in  Convention,  and  the  pro- 
posal which  they  made  as  to  the  Constitu- 
tion, had  no  force  until  ratified  by  the 
States— that,  therefore,  it  was  the  act  of  the 
several  States,  and  constituted  a  league  be- 
tween the  States  instead  of  being  according 
to  its  terms,  a  Union  of  the  People  of  the  United 
States,  extinguishing  or  suspending  during  its 
continuance,  (and  that  continuance  is  until 
doomsday)— Extinguishing,  then,  the  rights  of 
the  sovereign  States,  whose  consent  was  given  to 
it  as  to  certain  powers,  and  clothing  that  Federal 
Government,  which  was  established  by  that  Con- 
stitution, with  all  the  powers  enumeraed  in  that  in- 
strument, and  giving  it  at  the  same  time  all  the 
necessary  powers  to  carry  into  effect  those  which 
were  granted  in  express  terms.  I  argued  that  the 
very  hypothesis  of  the  gentleman  was  fatal  to  his 
argument.  He  maintained  that  the  States  which 
ratified  the  Constitution  were  sovereign.  I  grant 
it;  they  certainly  were.  It  is  a  part  of  my  case. 
They  were  essentially  sovereign,  and  when  they 
ratified  and  confirmed  this  instrument  they  had 
full  power  to  do  so,  and  to  grant  to  the  Federal 
Government  and  the  Constitution  all  the  charac- 
teristics, all  the  powers  secured,  by  all  the  sanc- 
tions which  are  preserved  and  ascertained  in  that 
instrument.  I  argue  that  the  ratification  of  the  in- 
strument made  it  take  effect  according  to  its 
tenor,  and  that  as  the  tenor  declared  it  was  an 
act  of  the  people  of  the  U.  States,  the  consent  of 
the  several  States,  the  only  power  which  could,  by 
any  possibility  of  the  widest  imagining,  call 
in  question  that  consent,  irrevocably  and 
indisputably    fixed  the  character  of  the  instru- 


ment and  made  it  take  effect  according  to  its  tenor. 

Now,  is  there  anything  whatever  in  the 
argument  that  this  Constitution,  as  it  stands, 
is  not  at  the  mercy  of  a  mass  meeting  of 
every  man,  woman  and  child  of  any  particular 
locality?  Of  course  there  is  not.  We  do  not  re- 
cognise, for  purposes  of  legislation,  National  or 
Federal,  any  tumultuary  assemblage  of  cit- 
izens. Every  county  and  city  in  every 
State  of  the  United  States  speaks  each  in  its 
sphere,  by  an  organized  body,  in  order  that  its  ut- 
terances may  be  distinct,  and  in  order  that  some 
formality  and  authenticity  may  accompany  its 
declaration.  If  every  man,  woman,  and 
child  becomes  opposed  to  the  Coustituiion,  and 
wish  its  alteration,  they  cannot,  by  making  an 
absurd  display  of  their  wish  meeting  in  pub- 
lic and  by  adopting  mass  resolutions,  effect 
any  change  in  that  instrument.  But  it  is  no 
less  true,  if  that  sentiment  isjuniversal,  the  alter- 
ation of  that  instrument  is  as  certain  to  occur,  in 
a  constitutional  way,  as  effects  to  follow  cause. 

The  gentleman  from  Marion  adverted  to  the 
failure  on  the  part  of  the  North  to  execute 
the  fugitive  slave  law.  I  said  yesterday  that 
I  quite  agreed  with  him  that  the  South  had  good 
cause  to  complain  of  the  North  in  that  respect. 
The  North  has  not  only  passively  but  actively  re- 
sisted the  execution  of  that  law.  Her  a.tive  op- 
position has  been  mostly  by  the  interposition  of 
mob  violence  in  the  way  of  the  action  of  the 
Federal  Officers.  But  is  it  fair  to  forget,  under 
these  circumstances,  that  when  mobs  of  that 
kind  have  obstructed  the  execution  of  the  law — 
in  the  Northern  States — that  their  force  has  been 
overborne  by  a  greater  force  under  the  Federal 
authority,  and  that  the  execution  of  the  law  has 
been  victoriously  carried  out  even  in  the  city  of 
BostonW  ?  as  there  any  scruple  iu  the  minds  of  the 
most  tender-footed  anti-coercionists  in  the  land, 
those  who  at  the  mere  mention  of  coercion  con 
jure  up  the  most  frightful  scenes  of  blood-shed, 
when  the  negro  Burns  was  taken  from  Boston  in 
execution  of  the  supreme  law  of  the  land? — did 
anv  one  then  think  that  act  on  the  part  of  the 
General  Government,  was  an  invasion  of  State 
sovereignty,  which  would  j  ustify  State  revolntion  ? 
I  trow  not.  If  such  opinions  were  entertained, 
they  were  by  such  men  as  Wendell  Phillips, 
Tappan  and  Garrison.  But  I  believe  I  must  cor- 
rect myself.  Those  men  are  anti-coercionists  at 
the  present  time— they  are  among  the  foremost 
in  defence  of  secession,  and  they  declare  the  Fed- 
eral Government  has  no  right  to  bring  back 
South  Carolina,  Georgia,  or  any  other  State  into 
the  Union.  They  not  only  say  that,  but  also  that 
the  Federal  Government  has  no  right  to  execute 
any  laws  of  Congress  within  any  of  those  States  ; 
that  they  are  out,  and  must  continue  out;  and 
they  argue  in  support  of  the  proposition  with  a 
zeal  which  shows  their  heart  is  in  it,  and  for  rea- 


145 


sons  good.  They  are  upon  this  subject  staunch 
allies  of  Rhett,  Yancey  &  Co.— and  they  see 
clearly— (the  gentleman  from  Marion  compli- 
mented the  far-sightedness  of  the  Abolition  party 
when  he  said  that  whatever  else  he  condemned, 
he  must  admire  their  keenness  of  perception,) 
let  me  tell  you  that  they  see  with  the  clear- 
ness of  a  prophet's  vision  that  the  disruption 
of  this  Confederacy  is  death  to  the  institution 
in  behalf  of  which  secession  is  invoked  by  them, 
and  in  defence  of  which  secession  is  claimed  to 
be  a  wise  measure  by  some  of  us. 

Mr.  President,  this  is  a  good  illustration  of  the 
manner  in  which  extremes  meet.  Those  who 
would  move  Heaven  and  earth  to  reduce  a 
nation  which  has  more  promise  than  any 
other  on  the  globe — to  reduce  it  to  the  misera- 
ble condition  of  the  governments  of  Mexico  and 
South  America — would  esteem  it  a  small  matter 
to  do  this  in  order  to  carry  out  their  sentimental 
theories  of  the  lights  of  the  African.  On  the 
other  hand  certain  men  in  the  South,  equally 
selfish,  equally  unscrupulous,  equally  faithless 
to  the  Constitution  to  which  they  owe 
fealty,  and  equally  faithless  to  a  Government 
which  is  admired  by  the  whole  world,  would 
shiver  this  Union  into  fragments  for  the 
purpose  of  building  up  a  contemptible  little 
oligarchy,  in  which  they  may  be  for  a  time, 
as  they  fancy,  the  heads.  One  has  for 
its  idol  the  perpetuation  of  African  slavery, 
and  the  other  has  for  its  dearest  wish,  as  it  says, 
to  obliterate  every  distinction  between  the  white 
man  and  the  black,  and  confer  upon  the  latter 
every  right  which  every  citizen  in  the  land 
enjoys.  These  two  objects,  these  most  opposed 
purposes,  arc-  pursued  by  persons  and  parties 
hitherto  the  most  violent  enemies;  but  now, 
travelling  the  same  road,  and  uniting  to  ad- 
vocate the  political  heresy  of  secession. 

These  oppositions  in  the  North  to  the  exe- 
cution of  the  fugitive  slave  law,  are  to  be  deplored 
and  condemned,  and  they  must  be  corrected,  and 
they  are  in  course  of  correction.  The  present  agi- 
tation will  not  be  without  its  effect.  If  it  does 
nothing  else,  it  will  rouse  the  public  mind  to 
matters  of  vital  interest;  and  if  it  will  compel  the 
people  to  resume  their  functions  of  self-govern- 
ment, instead  of  confiding  to  the  politicians,  ad- 
venturers and  place  hunters,  to  the  mob  and  to  the 
lowest  orders  of  society,  the  management  of  their 
affairs,  State  and  national,  the  effect  of  the  pres- 
ent disturbance  will.  1  trust,  be  to  make  every  cit. 
izen  sensible  that  if  there  is  one  duty  that  is 
sacred,  it  is  to  religiously  attend  to  the  selection 
of  proper  men  for  every  office  under  the  consti- 
tution of  the  State,  and  the  United  States.  The 
opposition  to  the  execution  of  the  fugitive  slave 
law  in  the  North,  may  be  very  well  set  off,  (in  or- 
der that  we  may  not  be  accused  of  self  righteous- 
ness, and  of  imagining  that  we  present  to  the  j 


world  the  spectacle  of  injured,  suffering  inno- 
cence; but  the  North,  that  of  active  aggression.) 
I  say  resistance  to  the  fugitive  slave  law  at  the 
North,  may,  for  that  purpose  only,  be  set  against 
the  non-execution  of  the  laws  for  the  suppression 
of  the  African  slave  trade  in  the  South.  What 
man  of  moderation  and  intelligence  throughout 
the  land  did  not  see  in  the  conduct  of  the  citizens 
of  a  Southern  State,  when  the  bark  "Echo/'  with 
a  cargo  of  slaves  was  brought  into  a  Southern 
port,  and  when  the  most  determined  opposition 
was  made  to  the  remanding  of  those  slaves  back 
into  the  country  from  where  they  were  taken; 
and  again  when  the  yacht  "Wanderer"  was 
taken  into  another  port,  and  there  by  force, 
in  open  day,  subjected  to  the  unresisted 
acts  of  mob  violence — what  man  is  there  who  did 
not  see  in  these  acts  an  assurance  that  this  law- 
lessness would  be  counterpoised  by  lawlessness  on 
the  other  side;  and  that  it  would  be  almost  im- 
possible, so  long  as  such  acts  were  unpunished, 
to  procure  an  execution  of  the  fugitive  slave 
lawr  in  the  North?  What  conclusions  do  I  de- 
duce from  all  this  ?  That  one  wrong  offsets  the 
other  and  that  no  party  has  a  right  to  complain  ? 
God  forbid !  I  say  that  there  are  wrongs  on  both 
sides,  and  that  both  wrongs  or  the  wrongs  on 
both  sides  must  be  corrected.  History  speaks  of 
wrongs  on  both  sides;  and  depend  upon  it,  wrongs 
upon  one  side  alone  can  never  produce  any  very 
mischievous  effect.  It  is  only  when  a  wrong  on 
one  side  is  met  by  a  wrong  on  the  other,  by 
a  kind  of  rivalry,  that  matters  reach  any  very 
high  point  of  mischief  and  destruction ;  and  there- 
fore I  call  the  attention  of  those  who  hear  me,  to 
these  faults  on  both  sides,  only  for  the  purpose  of 
drawing  attention  to  the  fact  that  public  senti- 
ment needs  correction  in  both  sections,  and  that 
if  we  are  to  continue  to  be  citizens  of  a  free 
country,  we  must  execute  the  laws,  because  they 
are  laws,  without  regard  to  the  prejudice  which 
stands  in  the  way  of  their  execution.  As  long 
as  the  laws  stand  there,  they  must  be  fulfilled,  and 
we  are  faithless  to  the  Constitution  under  which 
we  live,  unless  we  fulfill  them ;  and  more,  whenever 
a  citizen — I  will  not  say  a  judge — stands  in  the 
way  of  the  execution  of  the  law  because  of  a  sup- 
posed hardship — whenever  he  prevents  the  regular 
course  of  justice,  imagining  that  to  do  a  great 
right  he  may  do  a  little  wrong — whenever  that 
most  pernicious  and  puzzle-headed  philosophy 
gets  possession  of  any  mind,  there  is  no  such  thing 
as  saying  where  the  evil  consequences  of  the  act 
may  stop.  It  goes  forth,  and  the  results  are  not  to 
be  measured  or  foreseen.  Will  it  be  any  slight 
matter  that  we,  the  American  people,  should  lose 
that  reverence  for  the  laws  in  which  we  have  been 
educated,  which  is  the  most  distinctive,  the  proud- 
est characteristic  of  American  citizens ;  and  which 
has  been  regarded  with  a  sort  of  stupified  admira- 
tion by  travellers  from  Europe,  being  something 


146 


which  is  to  be  seen  nowhere  else  under  the  sun? 
I  have  been  told  by  foreigners  that  there 
is  nothing  which  so  impresses  the  na- 
tive of  any  other  country,  as  the  spec- 
tacle of  the  criminal  trials  which  take  place  in 
this —  a  Judge  sitting  upon  a  bench  in  plain 
clothes,  a  few  bystanders,  a  bailiff,  one  criminal 
and  a  jury;  no  tipstaff,  no  soldiers,  no  guard  over 
the  criminal — the  criminal  having  perhaps  the 
sympathies  of  a  large  number  of  the  audience,  and 
yet  no  one  in  the  crowd  having  any  more  idea  of 
the  possibility  of  gainsaying  the  sentence  which 
shall  be  pronounced,  upon  evidence,  or  of  oppos- 
ing its  execution  than  of  opposing  the  law  of 
gravitation,  but  yielding  to  it  as  an  irresistible 
power,  which  it  would  be  impiety  and  mad- 
ness to  contradict  or  oppose.  That  spectacle, 
the  force  of  that  moral  power  executing  its  own 
decrees  by  virtue  of  the  common  consent  of  the 
people  of  this  country,  and  standing  in  the 
place  of  the  sword,  standing  armies  and  constab- 
ulary forces — I  am  told  that  such  a  spectacle  is 
one  which  it  takes  a  long  time  for  foreigners  to 
understand.  Can  we  not  be  sensible  of  the  bless- 
ings we  enjoy,  and  the  deplorable  loss  we  shall 
sustain  if  ever  that  state  of  sentiment  ceases 
to  exist?  Yet  there  are  those  who  imagine  a 
case  of  subversion  of  this  Government  —  who 
look  forward  thirty  years  and  suppose  a  pos- 
sible state  of  things  on  which  secessionand  rev- 
olution may  be  justified — there  are  those  who, 
in  view  of  the  possibility  of  such  a  state  of 
things  at  the  end  of  thirty  years,  are  willing  now 
to  take  the  fatal  plunge,  and  convert  future  into 
present  evil.  These  men  are  such  enemies  to  the 
common  weal  that  I  have  no  sympathy  with  them, 
and  I  am  sure  that  such  a  wild  departure  from 
all  the  maxims  of  practical  statesmanship,  to 
say  nothing  of  the  rules  of  common  sence,  finds 
no  support  among  the  people  of  Missouri. 

It  is  said  those  who  argue  in  favor  of  the  Gov- 
ernment are  submissionists  and  coercionists. 
These  two  words  are  supposed  to  have  ugly 
sounds.  It  is  imagined  that  no  one  likes  to  be 
called  a  submissionist,  and  rather  than  be  so  called, 
•that  he  will  place  himself  upon  very  questionable 
ground — indeed,  that  he  will  allow  himself  to  be 
misrepresented  rather  than  accept  a  term  which  is 
capable  of  misinterpretation.  If  by  submissionist 
is  meant  one  who  is  determined  to  support  the 
constitution  and  submit  to  the  laws,  I  am  a  sub- 
missionist. The  term  is  one  in  which,  thus  ap- 
plied, I  shall  take  pride.  The  word  coercion  also 
has  been  plentifully  used  as  a  scare-crow.  Now,  co. 
ercion  is  a  word  the  definition  of  which  is  demand- 
ed of  those  who  use  it  in  an  evil  sense.  Am  I  called 
a  coercionist?  -I  ask  what  is  meant  by  coercion? 
I  don't  want  you  to  use  a  word  capable  of  two 
definitions  without  defining  the  sense  in  which 
you  use  it.  "We  lawyers  have  a  maxim  upon  the 
subject,  which    shows  how  jealously  all   such 


vague  terms  arc  regarded,  and  we  say  that  "  a 
man  who  wishes  to  deceive  confines  himself  to 
generalities."  And  so  I  say  it  is  impera- 
tively incumbent  upon  them,  if  they  wish 
any  one  to  pay  any  respect  to  them,  to 
define  what  they  mean  by  coercion.  They 
do  not  all  attach  the  same  meaning  to  it. 
Some  speak  of  the  horrors  of  war.  Does  any 
one  deny  the  horrors  of  war?  It  is  one  of  the  quar- 
rels of  Union  men  with  the  secessionists,  that  se- 
cession makes  war,  and  that  is  our  main  objec- 
tion to  it,  so  that  it  will  not  do  to  say  that  those 
who  are  in  favor  of  coercion  are  in  favor  of  war. 
In  that  word,  coerce,  we  understand  the  sen- 
timent Avhich  would  enforce  obedience  to  the 
laws  by  peaceable  and  civil  means,  and 
so  prevent  the  possibility  of  civil  Avar.  We 
would  appeal  to  those  civil  means  by  which  the 
Government  executes  the  laws,  and  so  prevent  an 
appeal  to  the  sword.  It  will  not  do  to  talk  about 
marching  armies  across  the  soil  of  the  Southern 
States  to  shed  the  blood  of  our  brothers  of  the 
South.  No  man  of  common  sense  would  advo- 
cate such  a  proceeding;  the  thing  is  too  absurd 
to  be  entertained  for  a  moment.  The  machinery 
for  the  proper  execution  of  the  laws  exists  in  all 
the  States.  It  may  be  that  it  is  now  out  of  joint, 
so  much  so  as  to  render  the  execution  of  the  law 
in  some  of  them  temporarily  impossible.  What 
then?  Wait  until  the  return  of  reason.  Time 
will  remedy  the  difficulty,  and  when  the  wrongs 
become  too  great,  the  people  of  those  states 
themselves,  uncoerced  except  by  the  convictions 
of  their  reawakened  patriotism,  will  invoke  the 
protection  of  that  law  which  not  they,  but 
usurpers  in  their  name,  have  thrown  off, 
andther,  by  common  consent,  the  law  will  once 
more  resume  its  sway,  and  this  Union  be  what  it 
was  in  times  past,  and  what  it  will  be  in  the  fu- 
ture. 

But  we  are  charged  with  misrepresenting  our 
Southern  brethren.  It  is  said  that  they  ought  to 
be  spoken  of  with  all  possible  tenderness.  One 
of  the  speakers  yesterday  told  you  that  he  could 
not  consent  to  call  these  persons  traitors; 
that  they  were  acting  for  the  common 
good,  and  were  just  and  pa'riotic.  I 
think  that  none  of  us  can  be  unmindful  of  the 
events  of  the  last  past  month,  and  looking  to 
the  actual  conduct  of  the  men  for  whom  this 
softness  of  expression  is  bespoken,  I  think  I 
see  in  this  tenderness  of  dealing  with  traitors  a 
certain  cowardly  spirit  of  compromise,  and  I  can- 
not help  denouncing  it.  It  seems  to  me  to  re- 
semble nothing  so  much  as  the  old  superstitious 
surgical  practices  of  the  Middle  Ages.  Then, 
when  a  man  was  run  through  the  body  with  a 
sword,  instead  of  treating  the  wound  and  salving 
it,  the  sword  which  had  created  the  wound  was 
taken  and  carefully  wiped  and  salved,  and  re- 
ceived every  attention,  and    the  poor  creatures 


147 


who  adopted  this  course  of  treatment  believed 
that  there  was  a  certain  kind  of  sympathy  where- 
by the  ointments  which  were  placed  upon  the 
edge  of  the  blade  would  produce  a  healing  effect 
upon  the  wound  itself.  Now,  that  we  have  out 
grown  this  surgical  superstition  and  absurdity,  we 
are  ready  enough  to  laugh  at  it,  as  an  exploded 
folly  of  the  dark  ages ;  but  are  we  not  exalting  our- 
selves a  little  unduly  ?  We  are  debating  whether 
we  shall  not  give  to  the  wound  which  the  body 
politic  has  received  the  precise  treatment  which 
was  in  vo^ue  500  years  ago,  in  the  case  of  wounds 
inflicted  by  the  sword  or  the  spear  upon  the  natu- 
ral body.  And  I  think  this  sentimentalism  which 
we  are  now  considering  does  not  differ  from  this 
surgical  absurdity  of  the  Middle  Ages.  And  I  may 
as  well  at  this  time  refer  to  another  illustration. 
There  have  been  sickly  sentimentalists  before 
our  time.  This  tenderness  towards  traitors 
and  this  dread  of  executing  the  laws  is 
not  entirely  a  new  thing.  There  have  been 
examples  of  the  kind  before  to-day,  wherein 
this  precious  brood  have  figured.  In  the  last 
century  there  was,  in  a  province  of  France,  a 
Judge,  who  was  a  young  man  of  great  learning, 
and  who  was  noted  for  his  most  ascetic  purity 
and  conduct  of  life.  He  supported  an  aged 
mother  out  of  the  small  salary  which  he  re. 
ceived  as  Judge,  and  this  small  salary  was 
his  only  means  of  subsistence.  This  Judge 
performed  his  judicial  functions  with 
great  acceptance  for  many  years.  At 
length  he  suddenly  resigned  his  office,  and  that 
resignation  left  him  destitute.  He  resigned — and 
why  ?  It  happened  that  a  man  who  had  been 
protected  and  educated  and  clothed  and  treated 
with  the  utmost  kindness  by  a  certain  old  gentle- 
man of  the  town,  had  murdered  his  benefactor  in 
order  to  clutch  his  funds.  This  wretch  having  been 
convicted  of  murder,  the  day  was  fixed  upon  for 
this  judge  to  pronounce  the  sentence  of  death ; 
but  he  was  so  tender-hearted,  that  rather  than 
pronounce  the  sentence  he  resigned  his  seat. 
Now,  do  you  suppose  I  am  speaking  of  Fenelon 
or  LaPeyroux,  or  any  of  those  philanthropists? 
No.  I  am  speaking  of  Maximillian  Robespierre— a 
man  who,  a  few  years  after  this  tender  exhibition, 
waded  in  blood  up  to  his  very  lips,  nay,  swam  in 
it.  I  can  assure  those  gentlemen  who  exhibit 
such  a  tender-heartedness  at  the  present  day  in 
regard  to  coercion,  that  Maximillian  Robespierre 
was  one  of  their  kind.  Sentimentalists  are  not  to 
be  trusted  with  the  conduct  of  any  practical 
business,  they  are  not  of  sound  mine!,  they  pro- 
fess great  regard  for  human  rights,  but  their  real 
affection  is  for  mooncalves;  for  the  abolition  of 
capital  punishment,  for  the  abolition  of  negro- 
slavery,  and  the  overthrow  of  every  institution 
that  deals  practically  with  facts,  and  with  nature, 
as  both  exist. 


It  was  said  in  support  of  the  amendment  un- 
der discussion,  that  if  Missouri  acted  properly  in 
this  matter,  she  must  act  as  Virginia,  Kentucky, 
Maryland  and  North  Carolina  acted  when  the 
New  York  resolutions  were  laid  before  them. 
These  New  York  resolutions  made  the  offer 
that  New  York,  would  be  ready  with  men 
and  money  to  enforce  the  Federal  authority 
in  the  South.  Kentucky  very  properly  said 
to  New  York,  whenever  you  embark  upon 
any  such  enterprise,  you  had  better  keep  clear  of 
the  soil  of  Kentucky;  for  if  you  attempt  to  cross 
the  soil  of  Kentucky  in  the  prosecution  of  such 
an  enterprise,  you  will  be  met  with  men  and 
arms.  I  am  prepared  to  indorse  that  sentiment, 
because  New  York  has  no  right  to  furnish  men 
and  money,  except  at  the  call  of  the  Federal 
Government.  This  resolution  assumed  gratuit- 
ously a  state  of  things  which  I  believe  will  never 
exist— a  state  of  war.  It  looked  forward  to 
that.  In  tendering  this  aid  to  the  Federal 
Government,  New  York  was  unquestionably 
wrong.  But  no  such  resolution  was  sent  to  us, 
and  we  should  be  wrong  in  going  out  of  our  way 
to  notice  it,  or  to  pass  this  amendment— and  to 
that  I  will  come  in  a  moment,  but  before  doing 
so,  I  wish  to  say  this: 

I  said  to  my  friend  from  Marion  yester- 
day, that  I  claimed  to  be  as  strict  a  construction- 
tionist  of  the  Constitution,  as  any  man  any- 
where; that  I  hold  the  Federal  Government  to 
the  powers  which  were  conferred  by  that  instru- 
ment. I  tell  him  I  shall  not  be  an  apologist  for  the 
North.  But  I  would  speak  unreservedly  my  sen- 
timents upon  this  subject,  and  before  I  leave  this 
part  of  the  subject,  I  wish  to  say  this :— that  I  be- 
lieve the  negro  race  is  blessed  by  the  institution 
of  African  slavery,  as  it  exists  in  these  United 
States;  that  there  is  no  spot  upon  the  face  of  the 
globe,  in  which  the  negro  race  enjoys  so  much 
physical  comfort,  or  moral  training  and  educa- 
tion, as  in  the  slave  States  of  North  America. 
I  weigh  my  words,  and  I  say  in  the  slave  States 
of  North  America. 

If  there  be  an  exception  to  the  remark,  I  should 
like  to  know  where  it  is.  Is  it  in  Africa,  where, 
at  the  funeral  of  the  King  of  Dahomay  hun- 
dreds of  human  victims  where  offered  in  bloody 
sacrifice  ?  Where  the  negroes  worship  all 
manner  of  idols  and  indulge  in  all  sorts  of  super- 
stitions and  beastly  practices  ?  Is  it  Liberia— a 
colony  which  has  been  settled  with  Africans 
from  this  country,  and  who,  though  partially 
civilized  by  contact  with  a  superior  race,  are  as 
credible  testimony  shows,  in  a  state  of  rapid 
relapse  into  the  barbarism  from  which  the  Afri- 
cans originally  sprang?  Is  it  in  Jamaica,  where  the 
negro  race  is  at  this  moment  in  a  far  less  civilized 
condition  than  in  183G  when  they  were  emanci- 
pated ?  In  183G,  when  those  negroes  were  eman- 
cipated, they  were  fast  becoming  Christianized, 


148 


but  they  have  since  relapsed, by  a  singular  instinct, 
into  all  those  degrading  and  superstitious  worships 
and  practices  peculiar  to  their  forefathers  in  the 
depths  of  Africa.  Is  it  in  the  Northern  States  of 
the  Union  ?  Let  no  one  suppose  that  such  is  the 
fact.  A  more  squalid,  debased  and  diminishing 
population  is  nowhere  to  be  found  than  the  free 
negroes  of  the  Northern  States.  It  will  not  do  to 
ascribe  this  to  climate,  for  in  some  of  the  free 
and  slave  States  there  is  no  difference  in  point  of 
latitude.  Take  for  instance  Missouri  and  Illi- 
nois, and  we  find  that  the  negro  is  far  better 
cared  for  in  this  State  in  bondage,  than 
free  in  Illinois.  There  is  Cuba,  which  is  a  slave 
country  of  a  tropical  climate,  but  Cuba  is  no 
exception  to  the  remark  I  have  made.  The 
Cubans  well  know  the  superior  capacities  of  men 
over  women  for  hard  labor,  and  seeing  in  the 
dreadful  slave  trade  an  unfailing  source  of  sup- 
ply at  a  cheap  rate  of  the  most  productive  class 
of  laborers,  they  have  on  large  estates  hundreds 
of  male  negro  slaves  without  two  women.  I 
need  not  dwell  upon  the  unspeakable  horrors 
that  necessarily  flow  from  such  a  state  of  society. 
Thank  heaven  there  is  nothing  like  it  in  my  coun- 
try. So  I  say  the  negro  race— and  I  say  it  for  the 
benefit  of  those  philanthropists  who  think 
they  have  a  special  mission  to  make  a  era" 
sade  against  slavery  in  the  Southern  States.— I 
say  whatever  its  effect  may  be  upon  the  white 
man— and  I  shall  leave  that  question  untouched— 
upon  the  black  man  its  influence  is  benign; 
and  that  no  where  else  is  the  African  race  so  welj 
cared  for,  as  in  the  slave  States  of  North 
America.  This  being  the  effect  upon  the  African, 
what  are  the  results  of  his  labor  ?  Can  any  per- 
son who  is  not  a  fanatic  contend,  for  a  moment, 
that  the  work  which  is  performed  by  slave  labor 
in  the  tropics — that  the  cotton,  rice  and  sugar 
which  is  there  cultivated — that  the  labor  neces- 
sary for  its  cultivation  can  be  performed  by  any 
but  the  negro  race  ?  It  cannot  be  done  by  any 
other.  And  one  of  two  things  must  be — either 
the  fertile  country  which  now  yields  to  the  world 
those  articles  of  necessity— for  they  have  ceased 
to  be  luxuries — either  these  must  be  surrendered 
to  the  serpent,  the  alligator  and  the  wilderness, 
or  the  institution  of  negro  slavery  must  pre- 
vail. It  is  clear  that  the  negro  cannot  be  made  to 
work  anywhere,  except  by  the  means  now  used 
in  the  Southern  States,  viz :  by  compulsion.  The 
negro  will  not  be  stimulated  to  industry  by  the 
expectation  of  its  ordinary  rewards.  Whenever 
reliance  has  been  placed  upon  these  motives,  the 
only  result  has  been  disappointment  and  failure — 
so  it  will  ever  be — you  must  compel  them  to  work. 
Nobody  understands  this  better  than  our  friends 
across  the  British  channel.  They  are  seeking  at 
this  moment  to  find  a  substitute  for  it.  They  have 
found  a  country  where  cotton  can  be  raised,  and 
they  have  the  African  race.    But  the  difficulty  is, 


they  want  organized  labor. — This  is  the  delicate 
phrase  which  they  use.  The  don't  like  to  use  the 
plain  word  slavery.  They  have  too  long  charged 
upon  all  who  had  part  or  lot  in  slavery  a  degree 
of  criminality  which  makes  them  shrink  from 
admitting  that  all  this  time  they  have  been  mak. 
ing  war  on  the  only  possible  means  of  supplying 
a  prime  necessity  of  the  civilized  world.  So  in- 
stead of  design  the  word  "negro-slavery"  they 
talk  of  "organized  labor"  at  the  hands  of  Afri- 
cans, and  in  admitting  that  without  such  organ- 
isation cotton  cannot  be  had,  they  go  as  far  as 
Exeter  Hall  can  be  expected  to  go  at  one  step, 
towards  the  abandonment  of  its  sentimental  plat- 
form. 

A  few  words  now  on  the  subject  of  this  resolution, 
and  I  hope  my  remarks  will  not  be  considered  out 
of  order.  I  object  to  this  amendment.  I  object  to 
it  because  it  is  subject  to  two  interpretations.  It 
is  equivocal,  and  the  over  zeal  of  our  present  ex- 
ecutive might  read  in  this  resolution  an  injunc- 
tion calculated  to  instruct  him  to  seize  the  Sub- 
Treasury  in  the  State  of  Missouri.  With  his 
over  zeal  upon  this  subject,  it  will  not  be  advisa- 
ble to  allow  him  to  imagine  that  he  will  be  under 
any  obligations  to  respect  the  injunctions  of  this 
Convention  so  far  as  to  seize  upon  the  Federal 
Treasury  in  this  city.  Now,  by  a  strict  construc- 
tion of  the  amendment  he  might  consider  himsel 
thus  authorized.  The  goods  and  merchandise 
that  are  consumed  in  Missouri  are  brought 
here  from  abroad.  The  duties  upon  these 
find  their  way  into  the  Sub-Treasury  of  this 
city,  and  these  are  our  contributions  to  the  Gen- 
eral Treasury,  and  this  is  the  money  which 
we  furnish  towards  the  support  of  the  Gen- 
eral Government ;  for  in  that  way  the  taxes  of 
the  Federal  Government  are  levied.  But  if  we 
declare  that  this  money  must  not  be  furnished  to 
the  General  Government  in  any  attempt  to  coerce 
a  seceding  State — and  that  term  remaining  so 
vague — it  being  by  some  considered  that  some  of 
the  very  simplest  acts  of  Federal  authority 
are  measures  of  coercion  —  it  may  be 
that  when  it  is  notified  to  the  Gov- 
ernor that  a  certain  sum  of  money  is  in  the 
Treasury  and  that  the  Federal  Government 
does  not  intend  to  send  the  mail  into  some 
of  the  seceded  States,  the  Governor  may,  in  the 
excess  of  his  zeal,  so  far  misinterpret  this 
amendment  as  to  believe  that  his  duty  compels 
him  to  take  the  monstrous  step  of  seizing  upon 
the  Treasury.  It  has  been  well  said  that  this 
amendment  is  liable  to  a  further  objection,  in  this 
that  it  needlessly  pledges  us  to  a  certain  line  of 
policy,  and  that  we  cannot  prudently  make  pled- 
ges to-day,  which  to-niorrow  we  may  see  the 
folly  of.  For  these  reasons  I  shall  vote  against 
the  amendment. 

Mr.  Comingo.  When  this  discussion  was  com- 
menced on  the  amendment  offered  by  the  gentle- 


149 


man  from  Clay,  I  did  not  intend  to  participate  in 
the  debate,  but  I  have  since  changed  my  pur- 
pose, and  determined  to  present  a  few  views 
touching  this  matter.  I  have  entertained  the 
hope,  until  the  last  few  days,  that  we  were  in  the 
way  of  adjusting  our  difficulties;  but  that  hope 
has  been  greatly  depressed  by  the  news  I  find  in 
the  morning  papers.  I  have  been  fluctuating  be- 
tween hope  and  despair  for  many  days,  but  this 
morning  I  feel  greatly  depressed.  I  feel  that  this 
nation  is  at  this  moment  standing  upon  a  treach- 
erous crust  of  a  fearful  volcano. 

I  regret  that  the  discussion  of  this  subject  has 
taken  such  a  wide  range.  I  could  have  wished 
the  members  bad  confined  themselves  more  strict- 
ly to  the  amendment.  It  is  very  important  that 
we  should,  in  this  matter,  act  with  great  deliber- 
ation ;  and  we  should  be  sure,  before  we  act,  that 
we  are  right.  There  has  never  been  a  time  when 
such  important  questions  have  been  presented  for 
consideration;  and  I  feel  that  we  ought  to  ascer- 
tain what  is  our  duty,  and  then  discharge  that 
duty,  whatever  it  may  be.  What  we  are  doing, 
Mr.  President  and  gentlemen  of  the  Convention, 
does  not,  and  will  not  affect  alone  our  interests, 
but  will  have  an  influence  in  all  coming  time. 
If  we  take  steps  which  may  involve  the  nation  in 
civil  war,  we  shall  do  that  which  in  all  future 
time  we  shall  have  cause  to  regret.  Consequent- 
ly, I  say,  that  we  ought  to  use  the  utmost  delib- 
eration before  we  attempt  to  do  anything. 

We  arc  taught,  by  philosophy,  that  a  small 
stone  cast  into  the  bosom  of  the  Atlantic, 
produces  a  vibration  that  is  felt  upon 
its  extreme  verge,  and  if  this  is  true 
in  natural  philosophy,  how  much  more  true  is  it 
in  moral  philosophy,  and  that  every  act  we  com- 
mit on  this  occasion  will  have  a  relation  to  all 
future  time.  I  am  not  disposed  to  go  into  a  his- 
tory of  the  difficulties  that  now  surround  us.  I 
do  not  conceive  that  it  is  important  that  we  should 
discuss  the  history  of  Abolitionism  or  Republi- 
canism. But  we  should  deal  with  facts  as  they 
now  exist.  I  do  not  conceive  that  history  has 
anything  to  do  with  the  subject.  It  seems  to  me 
to  be  about  as  wise  for  the  planters  of  Mississippi, 
in  time  of  a  crevasse,  when  the  waters  of  the  Mis- 
sissippi are  inundating  their  cotton  fields,  to 
stop  and  debate  how  much  of  that  water  came 
from  the  Ohio,  how  much  from  Lake  Itasca,  as  it 
is  for  us  to  debate  what  have  been  the  causes 
which  have  led  to  the  present  crisis  in  our  affairs. 
Entertaining  that  view,  I  shall  not  attempt  to 
trace  the  history  of  Republicanism,  or  trace  any 
of  our  past  history. 

I  am  ready  to  use  all  my  feeble  efforts  towards 
the  preservation  of  our  Union.  I  shall  never 
cease  my  labors  until  the  last  ray  of  hope  is  ex- 
tinguished. But  while  we  are  upon  this  subject, 
we  should  talk  about  it  plainly — we  should  not 
attempt  to  conceal  our  view.   So  far  as  solving  the 


present  difficulties  are  concerned,  I  trust  no  gen- 
tleman will  feel  disposed  to  occupy  any  equivocal 
ground.  At  the  same  time  that  we  feel  that  our 
duty  requires  us  to  talk  plainly  in  regard  to  our 
difficulties,  we  should  speak  in  terms  of  the  ut" 
most  kindness.  I  do  not  feel  like  casting  censure 
upon  any  man  at  this  time.  This  is  no  time  for 
crimination.  We  should  neither  denounce  a  man 
for  being  a  Secessionist,  neither  should  we  decry 
a  man  for  being  a  Republican.  But  if  we  can  do 
anything  to  save  the  country,  I  feel  that  our 
labors  will  have  been  sufficiently  rewarded.  I 
presume  from  what  I  have  studied  in  regard  to 
this  matter  .that  there  is  but  one  point  upon  which 
there  is  any  difficulty,  or  upon  which  this  Govern- 
ment is  to  be  shipwrecked.  It  is  well  known  to 
you  all,  I  presume,  that  the  Crittenden  proposi- 
tions received  great  favor,  and  would  have  been 
submitted  to  the  people  but  for  one  of  its  clauses, 
that  relating  to  the  subject  of  slavery  in  the  Ter- 
ritories. I  shall  not  attempt  to  discuss  the  merits 
of  that  proposition,  but  call  your  attention  to  the 
fact  that  there  would  have  been  no  difficulty  in 
the  way  of  adjusting  our  present  troubles  had  it 
not  been  for  that  clause.  Now,  gentlemen  of  the 
Convention,  this  difficulty  which  is  exciting  so 
much  attention,  is  an  abstraction,  according  to 
my  opinion,  although  it  is  true  there  is  a  princi- 
ple involved  in  it.  It  is  maintained  by  some  that 
slavery  should  be  protected  in  every  foot  of  Terri- 
tory, and  by  others  that  slavery  should  not  go  into 
the  Territories,  and  this  is  the  platform  upon  which 
Mr.  Lincoln  was  elected.  It  is  proposed  by  the 
Crittenden  proposition  that  we  shall  divide  this 
territory — that  all  north  of  a  certain  line  shall  be 
free  and  all  south  all  slave.  Our  friends  of  the 
North  say  that  they  will  not  grant  this  privilege, 
and  the  tendency  of  their  acts  thus  far  has  shown 
that  they  are  willing  to  disrupt  the  nation  and 
drench  it  in  fraternal  blood  rather  than  concede 
this  right.  I  maintain  that  if  this  line  were  drawn 
slavery  would  never  go  north,  and  that  it  would 
not  to  any  extent  be  established  south  of  that 
line.  I  think  every  man  ought  to  concede  this 
proposition  and  sacrifice  so  much  of  the  princi- 
ple as  to  permit  us  to  take  slavery  south  of  that 
line.  There  is  no  use  of  disguising  the  fact  that 
unless  this  question  is  adjusted  in  a  satisfactory 
manner,  civil  war  will  ensue,  as  well  as  a  total 
dissolution  and  disruption. 

But  what  shall  Missouri  do  at  this  time  ?  Shall 
she  secede  at  this  time?  No.  I  do  not  act  here 
with  that  view.  I  do  not  propose  that  Missouri 
shall  secede,  but  that  she  shall  speak  out  to  the 
border  free  and  slave  States,  and  to  the  whole 
Union,  and  tell  them  we  want  this  Union  pre- 
served. We  should  tell  them  that  we  desire  to 
settle  the  difficulties,  and  we  should  indicate  the 
plan  of  doing  it.  She  should  act  as  mediator; 
and  therefore  it  is  I  favor  the  amendment  of  the 
gentleman  from  Clay.    The  resolution  offered  by 


150 


the  Committee  on  Federal  Relations  does  not,  I 
think,  place  Missouri  in  a  proper  position.  Acting 
as  she  should  in  the  capacity  of  mediator,  I  say 
the  amendment  is  Avell  calculated  to  place  her  in 
her  true  position.  It  has  been  said  that  it 
contains  a  threat  and  an  ultimatum.  I  do  not  so 
regard  it.  I  think  it  gives  the  people  of  both 
sections  to  understand  what  we  require  and  what 
is  the  duty  of  the  North  and  South.  It  is  true  we 
are  part  and  parcel  of  the  General  Government, 
yet  we  tell  them  that  as  a  part  we  will  not  aid  in 
coercing  seceding  States.  I  say  that  we  should 
not  menace  the  South  nor  the  General  Govern- 
ment, and  when  we  say  we  will  not  countenance 
the  Southern  Confederacy  in  a  war,  or  the  Gen- 
eral Government  in  a  war  upon  the  Southern 
States,    we    are    taking    the    proper   position. 

I  do  not  think  the  resolution  at  all  conflicts 
with  our  duty.  We  are  dealing  with  the  subject 
as  it  now  presents  itself.  We  say  that  as  matters 
now  stand,  we  believe  that  our  line  of  duty  lies 
here,  and  we  will  follow  it.  It  is  known  that  the 
ver3r  moment  the  General  Government  makes 
war  upon  one  of  the  seceded  States,  all  hope  of 
adjustment  is  gone.  There  can  be  no  adjustment 
if  the  General  Government  should  attempt  to 
supply  Fort  Sumter,  or  collect  the  revenue,  or 
pass  a  law  abolishing  ports  of  entry.  Any  at- 
tempt of  this  kind,  to  cut  off  the  supplies  by 
means  of  the  sword,  would  be  coercion.  I  know 
that  many  differ  with  me  in  this  respect,  but  I 
am  opposed  to  the  General  Government  moving 
one  foot  in  coercing  these  States,  in  the  manner 
which  I  have  indicated.  I  am  opposed  to  the  re- 
inforcement of  Fort  Sumter,  or  of  supplying  Fort 
Pickens,  when  such  an  attempt  would  involve  the 
nation  in  such  a  manner  as  to  place  our  difficul- 
ties beyond  the  hope  of  adjustment.  And  the 
moment  that  the  first  drop  of  blood  is  shed  the 
last  ray  of  hope  vanishes,  and  then  all  the  border 
slave  States  will  go  out.  You  cannot  stop  the 
tide  of  public  feeling.  I  have  as  patriotic  devo- 
tion for  the  Government  as  any  man,  but  I  can- 
not ignore  the  fact  that  when  civil  war  is  initi- 
ated then  you  must  take  a  decided  stand,  and 
cannot  be  neutral.  Then  where  shall  we  go?  I 
think  there  cannot  be  any  question  about  that. 

What  is  the  true  position  in  regard  to  the  sece- 
ding States.  Now,  I  shall  not  discuss  the  Consti- 
tutional question  of  secession.  I  do  not  know 
that  any  gentleman  will  underake  to  justify  se- 
cession under  the  Constitution.  I  think  secession 
is  a  heresy,  and  that  no  such  term  is  applicable 
to  the  action  of  any  State.  The  only  term  that 
can  be  used  is  revolution.  Then  I  say  that  South 
Carolina  and  the  other  six  States  have  revolution- 
ized, and  that  the  revolution  is  complete,  and 
they  are  this  day,  although  their  independence 
has  not  been  acknowledged  by  the  United 
States,  an  independent  government.  This  rev- 
olution  has    been    bloodless,   but    it   is    com- 


plete. There  was  a  time  when  this  revolution 
could  have  been  arrested  and  its  leaders  hung  for 
treason.  But  I  ask,  gentlemen,  whether  that 
state  of  case  now  exists.  They  have  formed  a 
constitution.  Mr.  Buchanan  never  attempted  to 
arrest  the  tide  which  has  taken  them  out  of  the 
Union,  and  now  they  can  never  be  brought  back, 
except  by  treaty  or  stipulation.  Do  you  suppose 
that  if  Lincoln  marched  an  army  to  the  South, 
and  captured  Jeff.  Davis,  the  articles  of  war 
would  not  be  observed,  and  that  Jefferson  Davis 
would  be  treated  otherw  se  than  as  a  prisoner  of 
war?  Those  who  are  now  living  under  that  gov- 
ernment are  subject  to  it.  They  have  taken  an 
oath  of  allegiance  to  it,  and  now  their  action  can- 
not be  considered  treason.  You  will  find  that  ac- 
tion of  that  character  is  not  so  regarded  by  the 
best  authorities.  I  say  then,  the  course  indica- 
ted by  the  amendment  to  the  resolution  under 
consideration,  is  the  true  one.  I  am  unwilling  to 
forego  the  hope  that  peace  may  be  restored.  I 
hope  this  amendment  will  be  adopted,  because  its 
rejection  will  be  fraught  with  evil. 


AFTERNOON       SESSION. 

The  question  before  the  Convention  being  on 
the  adoption  of  the  following  amendment  offered 
by  Mr.  Moss,  of  Clay,  to  the  fifth  resolution  re- 
ported by  the  majority  of  the  Committee  on  Fed- 
eral Relations,  to  wit : 

"  And  further  believing  that  the  fate  of  Missouri 
depends  upon  the  peaceable  adjustment  of  our  pres- 
ent difficulties,  she  will  never  countenance  or  aid  a 
seceding  State  in  making  war  on  the  General  Gov- 
ernment, nor  will  she  furnish  men  and  money  for 
the  purpose  of  aiding  the  General  Government  in 
any  attempt  to  coerce  a  seding  State." 

Mr.  Hitchcock  said :  I  desire  to  speak  briefly 
to  the  resolution  offered  by  the  gentleman  from 
Clay.  I  am  glad  to  see,  from  the  remarks  as 
well  of  the  gentleman  who  last  preceded  me, 
[Mr.  Comingo,]  as  of  many  others  who  have  ad- 
dressed the  Convention,  that  in  one  feeling  we 
are  all  united.  I  believe  that  there  is  no  senti- 
ment more  earnest,  more  deep,  or  more  heart- 
felt in  this  Convention  than  the  desire  that  civil 
war  may  be  avoided  in  this  land,  and  that  this 
Union  may  be  preserved. 

We  are  assembled  here  to  deliberate  upon  the 
duty  of  the  people  of  this  State  at  this  crisis.  The 
question  has  been — upon  what  principles  shall  we 
act?  what  conclusion  shall  we  recommend  to 
that  people?  The  inquiry  takes  at  once,  in  the 
discussion  of  those  principles,  a  form  which  pre- 
sents it,  on  the  one  hand  as  a  question  of  policy 
merely,  while  on  the  other  it  is  regarded  as  a 
question  of  principle  underlying  that  policy. 
Now,  I  presume  that  the  proposition  will  not  be 
disputed  here— that  we  should  not  only  carefully 
weigh  all  that  we  do  but  that  in  taking  our 


151 


position  it  is  indispensable  that  we  select 
a  sure  foundation  for  that  position,  on  the 
principles  of  justice  and  truth.  Thus  alone,  in 
these  times  of  anxiety  and  doubt,  can  we  hope  to 
arrive  at  results  which  will  endure.  As  when  the 
mariner,  on  the  broad  waters  of  the  Mediter- 
ranean, suddenly  finds  himself  enveloped  by  the 
foam  and  fury  of  the  whirlwinds,  which  some- 
times sweep  across  that  majestic  inland  sea; 
darkness  and  tempest  surround  him,  and  he  may 
lose  sight  of  the  head-lands  by  which  he  shaped 
his  course ;  yet  though  all  other  objects  be  hid- 
den from  his  view,  if  he  can  but  fix  his  eye  upon 
his  faithful  chart  and  the  unerring  needle, 
steadfastly  obeying  their  guidance  through  all 
the  dangers  and  intricacies  of  his  course,  he  is  as- 
sured of  at  last  reaching  in  safety  the  haven  he 
desires.  Never  was  there  a  time  when  it  was  so 
vital  to  our  people  to  look  into  the  principles 
which  underlie  our  institutions.  It  is  by  those 
first  principles  that  we  must  regulate  our  action, 
And  I  am  rejoiced  that  these  fundamental  ques- 
tions have  been  brought  up  before  the  Convention 
for  discussion,  since  upon  our  views  of  these 
questions,  whether  we  desire  it  or  not,  will  prac- 
tically rest  the  course  which  we  shall  adopt. 

In  the  discussion  of  the  proposed  amendment, 
therefore,  I  desire — and  I  deem  it  eminently  ap- 
propriate— to  submit  some  considerations  in  re- 
ply to  the  remarks  made  yesterday  by  the  gentle- 
man from  Marion,  [Mr.  Redd,]  upon  the  right  of 
secession.  I  think  it  cannot  be  denied,  upon  a 
calm  consideration  of  the  resolution  now  before 
us,  that  it  contemplates  the  possibility  of  practi- 
cal nullification  by  the  State  of  Missouri.  The 
resolution  expressly  declares  that  the  State  will  not 
furnish  men  or  money  to  aid  the  General  Govern- 
ment in  any  attempt  to  coerce  a  seceding  State. 
We  are  met  at  once  by  the  ambiguity  which,  unfor- 
tunately, belongs  to  this  much  used  word  coercion. 
There  have  been  various  definitions  of  that  word. 
According  to  some,  it  means  the  marching  of 
an  army  into  the  South;  with  others,  it  embraces 
the  retaking,  and  with  others  the  mere  holding  of 
forts  and  arsenals — and  again  the  collecting  of  the 
revenue.  It  seems  to  me  that  the  word  is  gener- 
ally defined  more  or  less  broadly,  according;  to  the 
degree  of  sympathy  which  the  speaker  has  with 
the  action  of  the  extreme  Southern  States.  And  in 
view  of  the  fact  that  so  various  meanings  are  given 
to  the  word,  surely  we  are  bound,  if  we  use  that 
word,  to  use  it  in  view  of  any  interpretation 
whatever  which  may  be  put  upon  it.  "We  must 
foresee  and  be  ready  to  stand  by  it  under  any 
possible  interpretation.  Now  I  apprehend  that  it 
has  been  demonstrated  by  one  of  my  colleagues 
[Mr.  Broadhead]  that  under  the  Constitution  of 
the  United  States,  which  is  supreme,  the  General 
Government  has  power  to  provide  for  calling  out 
the  militia,  not  only  to  execute  the  laws,  but  also 
to  suppress    insurrections    and  repel  invasions. 


Suppose  that  the  General  Government,  in  the 
lawful  exercise  of  that  power,  should  call  upon 
the  people  of  this  State  to  exec  ute  any  existing 
law — suppose  Missouri  were  lawfully  called  upon 
to  furnish  men  to  aid  in  suppressing  insurrection 
or  repelling  invasion.  Suppose  that  in  such 
case — if  the  Convention  should  have  adopted  this 
resolution,  and  thereby  pledged  the  course  of  ac- 
tion of  our  people — suppose  that  a  response  to 
such  call  would  come  within  what  seme  of  them 
understand  to  be  "coercion" — should  we  not  be 
compelled  to  raise  a  question  which  might  pro- 
duce disorder  and  confusion  among  ourselves? 
Should  we  not  be  obliged  to  look  beyond  any  such 
resolution,  and  in  spite  of  any  such  interpreta- 
tion, at  the  true  nature  of  our  relations  to  the 
General  Government?  Should  we  not  be  bound 
to  act  in  accordance  with  a  just  view  of  our  true 
relations  to  it,  and  of  the  fundamental  principles 
of  our  institutions,  so  long  as  the  Union  contin- 
ued to  exist?  Therefore  I  do  not  see  how 
in  considering  this  resolution,  framed  as  it 
is,  we  can  escape  considering  the  question 
and  the  right  of  nullification  as  at  least 
a  possible  question:  and  when  we  speak  of 
nullification,  we  may  as  well  discuss  the  true 
question  which  that  idea  involves — namely,  the 
question  whether  a  State  has  a  right  to  throw  off 
its  obligations  towards  the  Union,  and  in  refusing 
to  obey  any  one  of  those  obligations  to  repudiate 
them  all.  It  cmues  to  that,  and  nothing  else. 
Nullification  cannot  be  defended  save  on  the 
ground  that  a  State  has  not  only  the  right  to  nul- 
lify but  to  secede.  And  I  desire,  therefore,  to 
consider,  as  directly  pertaining  to  the  question 
now  before  us,the  arguments  advanced  in  favor  of 
the  "Right  of  Secession." 

It  will  be  remembered  that  the  gentleman  from 
Marion  [Mr.  Redd]  in  asserting  the  right  of  se- 
cession, laid  down  the  following  proposition : 

"That  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States  is  an 
"instrument  mf.de  by  the  States,  acting  as  States, 
"and  having  at  the  time,  all  the  powers  of  sovereign- 
"ty;  and  that  it  was  a  compact  between  them;  and 
"that  if  this  be  true,  then  when  that  compact  is  vio- 
lated, each  State  has  a  right  to  declare  that  com- 
"pact  at  an  end." 

I  read  from  my  notes  of  the  gentleman's  re- 
marks, carefully  taken.  I  wish  to  state  his  argu- 
ment fairly  and  correctly,  and  if  I  have  not  done 
so,  I  hope  he  will  set  me  right.  But  I  believe  this 
is  precisely  what  he  said. 

In  support  of  that  proposition,  a  brief  histori- 
cal statement  was  made  as  to  the  circumstances 
preceding  and  attending  the  adoption  of  the  Con- 
stitution. You  were  reminded  that  on  the  Fourth 
of  July,  1776,  the  thirteen  colonies  declared  them- 
selves to  be  "  free  and  independent  States,"  claim- 
ing "full  power  to  levy  war,  conclude  peace, 
contract  alliances,  establish  commerce  and  to  do 
all  other  acts  and  things  which  indepedent  States 


152 


may  of  right  do."  It  was  further  stated,  that 
in  1777,  these  free  and  independent  States  formed 
a  compact,  under  the  Articles  of  Confederation, 
by  the  fifth  Article  of  which,  they  created  an 
agent,  the  Congress,  and  delegated  to  it  powers 
necessary  for  mutual  defense  and  general  welfare ; 
that  in  that  Congress,  each  State,  without  regard 
to  size  or  population,  had  one  vote;  that  by  the 
second  article  each  State  expressly  retained  its 
sovereignty,  and  all  powers  not  expressly  dele- 
gated to  the  Congress.  It  was  further  stated  that 
the  confederation  so  formed  lasted  about  ten 
years.  But  that  experience  showed  the  Congress 
to  be  deficient  in  the  necessary  powers,  and  that 
in  1787  it  passed  an  act  calling  on  the  States  to 
remedy  these  defects ;  that  they  did  so,  each  State 
sending  delegates  appointed  in  its  own  way, 
which  delegates  met  in  convention  in  September, 
1787,  and  formed  the  present  Constititution  of  the 
United  States. 

You  were  further  reminded  that  by  the  tenth 
article  of  that  Constitution  it  was  provided  that 
when  ratified  by  nine  States,  it  should  go  into 
effect  as  between  the  States  ratifying  the  same; 
that  it  was  ratified  by  three  States  in  the  fall  of 
1787,  and  by  six  more  in  the  spring  of  1788;  and 
that  then,  and  not  till  then,  had  it  vitality. 

It  was  contended  that  these  facts  established 
the  proposition  above  stated;  that  the  action  of 
the  States  as  such  alone  gave  vitality  to  the  in- 
strument; that  the  Convention  performed  the 
mere  office  of  a  scrivener,  and  that  since,,  until 
ratified  by  nine  States,  the  instrument  had  no 
effect,  that  the  true  question  was— "When  was 
the  Constitution  ratified  ?"— and  that  when  you 
answer  that,  you  tell  when  its  vitality  begun. 
That,  therefore,  it  was  not  the  action  of  the  Con- 
vention, but  the  ratification  by  the  several  States, 
which  gave  vitality  to  the  instrument.  And  the 
gentleman  insisted  that  while  the  effect  of  the 
Constitution  might  be  a  question  of  law,  yet  the 
question  as  to  -what  it  is,  is,  as  he  expressed  it,  a 
mere  question  of  fact,  to  be  ascertained  and  es- 
tablished, like  any  other  question  of  fact,  by 
evidence.  Upon  the  facts  above  set  forth,  there- 
fore, he  claimed  that  the  Constitution  was  a  com- 
pact between  the  several  States,  taking  effect  upon 
its  ratification  by  the  ninth  State  in  June,  1788; 
and  that  afterwards  the  four  remaining  States 
concluded  also  to  ratify  it,  and  so  became  parties 
to  the  compact. 

It  was  further  argued  that  the  delay  of  these 
four  States  to  ratify  the  Constitution,  was  addi- 
tional evidence  that  it  was  a  compact  merely;  for 
where,  it  was  asked,  were  those  four  States  in  the 
interim?  Not  under  the  old  Confederation,  for 
that  was  dissolved;  not  under  the  new  Constitu- 
tion, for  that  they  had  not  adopted.  They  re- 
tained, meanwhile,  all  their  sovereign  powerjand 
as  sovereign  States  they  finally  came  in  and  be- 
came parties  to  the  new  compact. 


Upon  these  grounds  the  gentleman  from  Mari- 
on claimed  to  have  established  his  proposition. 
He  adduced  further  arguments,  indeed,  from  the 
provisions  contained  in  the  Constitution  itself  for 
its  own  amendment,  claiming  that  since  amend- 
ments, even  when  proposed  by  a  National  Con- 
vention, must  be  ratified  by  three-fourths  of  the 
States,  it  is  still  the  sovereign  States  which  hold 
the  power  to  ratify  or  prevent  any  change.  And 
that  it  is  therefore  true  that  the  Constitution  is  a 
compact  formed  by  the  States,  and  not  by  the 
people  of  the  United  States  as  one  community. 

This,  if  I  am  not  mistaken— and  I  ask  to  be  cor- 
rected if  I  am— was  the  gentleman's  whole  argu- 
ment as  to  the  true  nature  of  the  Constitution. 
From  this  he  deduced  without  difficulty  the  con- 
clusion, that  though  there  is  no  tribunal  to  which, 
in  case  this  "compact"  be  violated,  an  appeal  can 
be  made,  yet  there  is  a  law  that  provides  for  the 
settlement  of  all  difficulties— a  law  founded  on 
eternal  principles  of  justice,  and  recognized 
throughout  the  civilized  world— the  law  of  na- 
tions. That  according  to  this  law,  when  inde- 
pendent sovereign  States  make  a  compact,  they 
arc  bound  to  keep  it  in  good  faith. 

But,  it  was  said,  if  the  compact  be  violated,  the 
law  of  nations  provides  a  remedy  in  one  of  two 
ways.  The  injured  party  may  either  claim  to 
hold  the  offender  to  the  compact  and  demand  in- 
demnity for  its  violation,  or  it  may  rightfully  de- 
clare the  compact  at  an  end.  And  if  the  offender 
refuse  to  consider  the  compact  at  an  end  when  so 
rightfully  declared,  then  an  appeal  to  arms — mil- 
itary coercion — is  the  only  resource. 

Pursuing  the  principles  thus  laid  down,  and 
which  the  gentleman  declared  to  be  the  true  and 
only  principles  upon  which  the  mutual  rights  and 
duties  of  the  States  can  be  be  determined,  he  ad- 
mitted that,  if  the  Northern  States  have  not  viola- 
ted this  "compact,"  then  the  Southern  seceding 
States  have  done  wrong,  and  may  be  rightfully 
compelled  by  the  North  to  fulfill  it  on  their  part. 
But  if  the  States  of  the  North  have  violated  the 
compact,  then  the  States  of  the  South  have  a 
right  to  declare  it  at  an  end.  And  thus,  having 
established,  to  his  own  satisfaction,  the  right  of 
secession,  under  the  Constitution,  the  gentleman 
went  into  an  elaborate  statement  of  the  wTrongs 
on  the  part  of  the  North,  which,  in  his  view,  fully 
establish  the  right  of  the  Southern  States  at  this 
time,  to  declare  the  compact  at  an  end. 

Into  this  latter  branch  I  do  not  propose  now  to 
follow  him.  I  deny  his  premises  and  dispute  his 
argument — if  I  am  right  in  that,  his  conclusions 
fall  to  the  ground.  I  claim  that  the  Constitution 
of  the  United  States  is  not  a  compact,  but  j  ust  what 
it  purports  to  be — a  Constitution  :  the  result  of 
a  compact,  no  doubt,  but  in  no  sense  a  compact 
between  sovereign  States  as  such.  I  claim  that 
by  and  under  that  Constitution  there  was  estab- 
lished and  now  exists  a  real    National  Govern- 


153 


ment :  that  for  all  the  purposes  of  that  Govern- 
ment, which  -was  established  by  and  for  the  peo- 
ple of  this  country,  the  sovereignty  of  the  States 
respectively  Mas  taken  away  from  them  by  the 
people,  who  ratified  and  adopted  the  Constitu- 
tion, to  whatever  extent  they  thought  necessary 
for  their  own  welfare.  And  I  contend  that  it  is 
to  that  instrument  itself,  the  Constitution  of  the 
United  States,  that  we  must  look,  and  that  in  it 
avc  shall  'find  a  true  and  unmistakable 
exposition  of  its  nature,  objects  and  extent. 
Indeed,  the  Convention  must  have  been  struck 
with  the  remarkable  admission  which  was  made 
by  the  gentleman  himself,  in  opening  his  re 
marks — an  admission  which  the  advocates  of  his 
theory  are  usually  very  slow  to  make,  and  anx- 
ious in  proportion  as  they  find  it  difficult  to  get 
over.  lie  frankly  admitted  that  the  very  first 
words  in  the  preamble  to  the  Constitution — (,We, 

THE  PEOPLE    OF    THE    UxiTED    STATES" — Were 

not  in  harmony  with  his  interpretation  of  that  in- 
strument. He  went  further;  he  acknowledged 
(with  a  candor  which  I  respect)  that  those  words 
are  " prima  facie  evidence"  against  him — "pri- 
ma facie  evidence"  that  the  instrument  was  not 
a  compact  between  sovereign  States,  but  a  Con- 
stitution established  by  one  people.  Prima  facie 
evidence,  Mr.  President,  as  every  lawyer  knows, 
means  evidence  which  if  not  overthrown  or  con- 
tradicted, is  held  sufficient  to  prove  a  proposition 
true.  Has  this  evidence  been  overthrown  by  the 
argument  which  I  have  quoted?  I  confess  I  am 
unable  to  see  any  logical  connection  in  that  argu- 
ment. 

What  can  be  the  connection  between  the  nature 
of  the  instrument,  and  the  time  of  its  ratifica- 
tion ?  What  difference  can  it  make  as  to  what 
that  Instrument  was  andis,  whether  nine  States 
or  thirteen  States  adopted  it  in  1787,  or  1788,  or 
four  or  ten  years  after. 

I  claim'that  the  Constitution  itself  is  its  own  best 
and  necessary  interpreter,  and  that  both  as  a  mat- 
ter of  fact  and  of  common  sense,  if  we  would  un- 
derstand the  instrument  we  must  look  into  it.  But 
the  gentleman  from  Marion  prefers  to  look  out- 
side :  he  declares  the  express  recitals  of  the  in- 
strument prima  facie  evidence— no  more :  and 
appeals  to  the  history  of  its  adoption  to  decide 
"as  a  question  of  fact,"  what  it  is.  Well,  sir,  I 
will  meet  the  issue  of  fact.  I  appeal  to  the  true 
history  of  the  times— the  history  of  that  instru- 
ment itself— the  words  and  acts  and  declarations 
of  the  statesmen  who  framed  it— the  occasion 
which  assembled  them,  the  evils  they  were  forced 
to  remedy,  the  remedy  which  they  did  provide, 
and  their  express  declarations  as  to  what  they 
thought  that  remedy  was.  And  thus  upon  his 
own  ground,  and  by  the  very  evidence  to  which 
he  appeals,  I  propose  to  show  that  the  gentleman's 
theory  of  a  compact  between  sovereign  States  is 
wholly  untenable  and  mistaken. 


I  remark,  in  the  first  place,  that  it  is  important 
to  have  correct  ideas  of  the  relations  of  the  States 
to  the  central  authority  prior  to  1787.  It  is  a  se- 
rious mistake  to  speak  of  the  old  Confederation, 
still  more  of  the  Congress  which  preceded  it,  as 
though  the  States  had  on  a  certain  occasion  come 
together  and  held  a  meeting  and  made  an  agree- 
ment and  quietly  gone  on  under  it.  The  Conti- 
nental Congress  which  adopted  the  Declaration 
of  Independence,  was  little  more  than  a  Revolu- 
tionary Central  Committee  of  the  States,  with 
powers  necessarily  vague  and  indefinite,  and 
with  an  authority  which  nothing  but  the  pressing 
necessities  of  the  times  upheld.  That  same  Con- 
gress proposed,  in  1777,  the  articles  of  Confeder- 
ation which  were  ultimately  adopted  by  the 
States;  but  not  until  1781  were  they  adopted  by 
all  the  States,  nor  did  the  first  Congress  of  the 
Confederation  meet  (under  the  Article  of  the  Con- 
federation) till  March  2d,  1781.  The  Confedera- 
tion therefore  really  lasted  but  little  more  than  six 
years,  instead  of  ten.  And  there  is  nothing  more 
striking  or  more  manifest  in  the  whole  history  of 
the  Revolutionary  struggle,  or  of  the  five  years 
that  followed  its  conclusion,  than  the  fact  that 
nothing  but  the  pressing  necessities  of  war  had 
kept  the  States  together,  even  imperfectly  as  they 
did  it.  Hardly  was  peace  proclaimed,  when  the 
energies  which  a  common  danger  had  directed 
against  a  common  foe,  began  to  stir  up  internal 
strife.  State  pride,  State  rights,  State  jealousies, 
State  rivalries,  rapidly  weakened  the  ties  which 
had  united  them,  and  the  most  dangerous  inter- 
nal dissensions  threatened  to  destroy  all  safety  at 
home,  while  they  were  paralysing  all  respect  and 
confidence  abroad.  The  Confederation  was 
hardly  formed  before  it  began  to  decay  by  its 
own  inherent  defects. 

This  "Confederation"  was  in  every  sense  a 
compact  between  the  States.  It  purported  to  be 
such,  both  in  the  preamble  and  by  the  tenor  of 
the  articles.  The  separate  sovereignty  of  the 
States  was  expressly  reserved  by  the  2d  Article, 
and  by  3d  Article  it  is  expressly  set  forth  that 
"  the  said  States  hereby  severally  enter  into  a 
firm  league,"  &c.  I  do  not  dispute  the  gentle- 
man's views  as  to  the  "  Confederation."  They 
suit  me  exactly. 

But  why  were  those  "Articles  of  Confedera- 
tion" abandoned?  Why  was  the  Federal  Con- 
vention held  in  1787  ?  If,  as  the  gentleman  states 
— and  as  I  agree — it  was  to  remedy  defects  shown 
by  experience,  what  was  their  nature  and  what 
was  the  remedy  proposed  ?  These  are  some  of 
the  "facts"  with  which  I  shall  deal,  and  I  pro- 
pose to  answer  these  questions  from  the  original 
and  indisputable  records  of  the  transactions 
themselves,  and  in  the  words  of  those  who  took 
part  in  them. 

I  beg  to  read,  in  answer  to  the  first  of  these  in- 
quiries, from  an  elaborate  statement,  drawn  up 


154 


by  James  Madison,  and  printed  at  pages  109- 
120  of  the  Madison  Papers,  petting  forth  the 
events  which  preceded  and  the  evils  and  dangers 
which  brought  about  the  Federal  Convention  of 
1787: 

"At  the  date  of  the  Convention  the  aspect  and 
retrospect  of  the  political  condition  of  the  United 
States  could  not  but  fill  thepublic  mind  withag'oom 
which  was  relieved  only  by  a  hope  that  so  select  a 
body  would  devise  an  adequate  remedy  for  the  exist- 
ing and  prospective  evils  so  impressively  demanding 
it. 

"  It  was  seen  that  the  public  debt,  rendered  so  sa- 
cred by  the  cause  in  which  it  was  incurred,  remained 
without  any  provision  for  its  payment.  The  reiter- 
ated and  elaborate  efibits  of  Congress  to  procure 
from  the  States  a  more  adequate  power  to  i  aise  the 
means  of  payment,  had  failed.  The  effect  of  the  or- 
dinary requisitions  of  Congress  had  only  displayed 
the  inefficiency  of  the  authoiity  making  them,  none 
of  the  States  having  duly  complied  with  them,  some 
having  failed  altogether,  or  nearly  so,  while  in  one 
instance,  that  of  New  Jersey,  a  compliance  wras  ex- 
pressly refused :  nor  was  more  yielded  to  the  expos- 
filiations  of  members  of  Congress,  deputed  to  her  Leg- 
islature, than  a  mere  repeal  of  the  law,  without  a 
compliance.  The  want  of  authority  in  Congress 
to  regulate  commerce  had  produced  in  foreign 
nations,  particularly  Great  Britain,  a  monopo- 
lizing policy,  injurious  to  the  trade  of  the 
United  States,  and  destiuctive  to  their  navigation: 
the  imbecility  and  anticipated  dissolution  of  the 
confederacy  extinguishing  all  apprehension  of  a  coun- 
tervailing policy  on  the  part  of  the  United  States. 
The  same  want  of  a  general  power  over  commerce, 
led  to  an  exercise  of  the  power,  separately,  by  the 
States,  which  not  only  proved  abortive,  but  engen- 
dered rival,  conflicting  and  angry  regulations.'' 

"The  States  having  ports  for  foreign  commerce 
taxed  and  irritated  the  States  trading  through  them — 
as  New  York,  Pennsylvania,  Virginia  and  South 
Carolina.  Some  of  the  States,  as  Connecticut,  taxed 
imports  from  others,  as  from  Massachusetts,  which 
complained  in  a  letter  to  the  Executive  of  Virginia, 
and  doubtless  to  those  of  other  States.  In  sundry 
instances,  as  of  New  York,  New  Jersey,  Pennsylva- 
nia, and  Maryland,  the  navigation  laws  treated  the 
citizens  of  other  States  as  aliens.  In  certain  cases, 
the  authority  of  the  Confederacy  was  disregarded — 
as  in  violation,  not  only  of  the  treaty  of  peace,  (with 
Great  Britain,)  but  of  treaties  with  France  and  Hol- 
land; which  were  complained  of  to  Congress.  In 
other  cases,  the  Federal  authority  was  violated  by 
treaties  and  wars  with  Indians,  as  by  Georgia:  by 
troops  raised  and  kept  up  without  the  consent  of 
Congress;  as  by  Massachusetts:  by  compacts  without 
the  consent  of  Congress;  as  between  Pennsylvania 
and  New  Jersey,  and  between  Maryland  and  Vir- 
ginia." 

"In  the  internal  administration  of  the  States, 
a  violation  of  contracts  had  become  familiar,  in  the 
form  of  depreciated  paper  made  a  legal  tender,  of 
property  substituted  for  money,  of  instalment  laws, 
and  of  the  occlusions  of  the  courts  of  justice,  although 
evident  that  all  such  interferences  affecting  the  rights 
of  other  States,  relatively  creditors,  as  well  as  citi- 
zen,   creditors  withi.i  the  State.      Among  the  de- 


fects which  had  been  severely  felt,  was  want  of  uni- 
formity in  cases  requiring  it,  as  laws  of  naturalization 
and  bankruptcy;  a  coercive  authority  over  individu- 
als, and  a    guarantee  of  internal  tranquility  of  the 

States." 

Such,  Mr.  President,  is  the  gloomy  catalogue 
given  by  this  eminent  Virginia  statesman  of  the 
evils,  the  defects  and  the  disorders  then  existing 
under  and  resulting  from  the  Articles  of  Confede- 
ration. But  he  goes  on,  as  it  were  with  a  pro- 
phetic no  less  than  a  historic  statement  of  the 
consequences  which  then  flowed,  and  which 
must  ever  flow  from  such  a  system.  I  continue 
the  extract : 

"As  a  natural  consequence  of  this  disheartening 
and  distracted  condition  of  the  Union,  the  federal 
authoiity  had  ceased  to  be  respected  abroad;  and 
dispositions  were  shown  theie,  particularly  in  Great 
Britain,  to  take  advantage  of  its  imbecility  and  to 
speculate  on  its  approaching  downfall.  At  home  it 
had  lost  all  confidence  and  credit.  The  unstable  and 
unjust  career  of  the  States,  had  also  forfeited  the  re- 
spect and  confidence  essential  to  order  and  good 
government,  involving  a  general  decay  of  confidence 
and  credit  between  man  and  man." 

And  what  were  the  rapidly  approaching  results 
and  dangers  threatening  not  only  the  Confedera- 
tion of  the  States,  but  the  liberties  of  the  people 
themselves?    Mr.  Madison  thus  continues: 

"It  was  found  moreover  that  those  least  partial  to 
popular  government,  or  most  distrustful  of  its  effi- 
cacy, were  yielding  to  anticipations,  that,  from  an 
increase  of  the  confusion,  a  government  might,  result 
more  congenial  to  their  taste  or  their  opinio*  s:  Whilst 
those  most  devoted  to  the  principles  and  forms  of  re- 
publics were  alarmed  for  the  caute  of  liberty  itself,  at 
stake  in  the  American  experiment,  and  anxious  for  a 
system  that  would  avoid  the  ineflicacy  of  a  mere  con- 
federacy without  passing  into  the  opposite  extreme  of 
a  consolidated  government.  It  was  known  that  there 
were  individuals  who  had  betraed  a  bias  towards  mon- 
archy, and  there  had  always  been  some  not  unfavor- 
able to  a  partition  of  the  Union  iido  several  confed- 
eracies, either  from  a  better  chance  of  figuring  on  a 
sectional  theatre,  or  that  the  sections  would  require 
stronger  governments,  or  by  their  hostile  conflicts, 
lead  to  a  monarchical  consolidation.  The  idea  of  dis- 
memberment had  recently  made  its  appearance  in 
the  newspapers." 

"  Such  [says  Mr.  Madison]  were  the  defects,  the 
deformities,  the  diseases,  and  the  ominous  prospects, 
for  which  the  Convention  were  to  provide  a  remedy, 
and  "—[I  beg  the  gentleman  to  observe  this]—"  which 
ought  never  to  be  overlooked  in  expounding  and  ap- 
preciating the  constitutional  charter ,  the  remedy  that 
was  provided.'1'1 

I  think,  sir,  that  with  this  understanding  of  the 
evils  to  be  remedied,  we  may  proceed  to  examine 
the  measures  adopted  for  that  purpose. 

The  Federal  Convention  met  at  Philadelphia, 
in  May,  1787.  After  some  days  spent  in  waiting 
for  absentees,  and  in  preliminary  business,  we 
find  that  on  the  29th  of  May,  (see  debates,  p.  126,) 
Gov.  Randolph,  of  Virginia,  "  opened  the  main 
"  business."    Both  from  his  own  statement,  and 


155 


from  that  of  Mr.  Madison,  it  appears  that  he  did 
so  upon  upon  consultation  with,  and  at  the  re" 
quest  of  lis  colleagues,  "  the  Convention  having 
"  originated  from  Virginia" :  and  that  his  propo- 
sitions embodied  their  views.  He  made  a  brief 
address,  strongly  picturing  the  distracted  condi- 
tion of  the  country,  and  the  utter  inefficiency  of 
the  Confederation,  and  closed  by  offering  a  series 
of  fifteen  resolutions,  embodying  the  essential 
features  which  they  thought  expedient  to  adopt. 

On  the  same  day,  Mr.  Pinckney,  of  South  Car- 
olina, laid  before  the  Convention  a  plan  of  a  Fed- 
eral Constitution,  and  both  plans  were  referred 
to  the  Committee  of  the  whole. 

On  the  next  day,  Mr.  Randolph's  plan  was 
taken  up,  but  was  postponed  in  order  to  consider 
the  following  resolutions,  also  introduced  by  him, 
and  which  I  read,  as  showing  the  fundamental 
principles  upon  which  the  Convention  acted. — 
[Debates,  p.  132.] 

"1.  That  a  Union  of  the  States  merely  Federal  will 
not  accomplish  the  objects  proposed  by  the  articles 
of  confederation — namely,  common  defence,  secu- 
rity of  liberty,  and  general  welfare." 

2.  "That  no  treaty  or  treaties  among  the  whole  or 
part  of  the  States,  as  individual  sovereignties, 
would  be  sufficient." 

3.  "That  a  Nit'wnal  Government  ought  to  be  es- 
tabli  hed,  corsisting  of  a  supreme  legislative,  exec- 
utive, and  and  judiciary." 

I  cannot  too  earnestly  ask  your  attent;on  to 
these  brief  and  simple,  but  all-important  resolu- 
tions. They  were  introduced  and  debated,  ex- 
pressly as  involving  the  fundamental  principles 
by  which  all  the  action  of  the  Convention  was  to 
be  shaped.  They  expressly  declare  that  no  treaty 
or  treaties,  no  union  merely  Federal,  between  the 
States  as  individual  sovereignties,  will  accomplish 
the  desired  objects.  The  discussion  of  them 
shows  that  the  vital  question  was  precisely  wheth- 
er the  future  Union  should  be  a  "Confederation," 
a  league,  or  treaty,  between  the  States  as  such,  or 
a  National  Government,  resting  and  operating 
upon  the  whole  people.  Thus  we  find :  [Debates, 
p.  133:] 

"Mr.  Gouverneur  Morris  explained  the  distinc-  ! 

"  tion  between  a  Federal  and  a  National  Govern-  ! 
"  ment:  the  former  being  a  mere  compact  resting  on 

"  the  good  faith  of  the  parties,   the  latter  having  a  j 
"  complete  and  compulsive  operation. 

"  Mr.  Mason  observed  not  only  that  the  present  I 

"  Confederation  was  deficient  in  not  providing  for  co-  ! 

ercion  and  punishment  against    delinquent  States,  I 

but  argued    very  cogently  that  punishment  could  : 

not,  in  the  nature  of  things,  be  executed  on  the  j 

States  collectively,  and  therefore,  that  such  a  gov-  I 

ernment  was  "  necessary  as  could  dh  ectly  operate  j 

on  individuals,  and  would  punish  those  only  whose  ! 
guilt  required  it." 

The  first  direct   vote    taken    in    Committee  i 

on  the  Whole,  was  on  Mr.  Randolph's  third  j 
resolution,  which  I  have  just  read,   and  it  was 

adopted  on  motion  of  Mr.  Pierce  Butler  of  I 


South  Carolina :  six  States  voting  aye,  the  State 
of  Connecticut  no,  and  the  State  of  New  York 
equally  divided.  Thus  was  deliberately  laid  the 
foundation  for  our  present  Government,  on  a 
"National,"  as  opposed  to  a  "Federal"  plan. 

I  will  not  weary  you,  sir,  nor  the  Convention, 
by  referring  to  the  numerous  other  proofs  of  the 
same  sort  which  the  Debates  of  the  Federal  Con- 
vention afford.  I  desire,  in  this  connection  only, 
to  allude  to  one  or  two  others.  It  will  be  found 
that  the  "Federal"  party  in  that  body,  (as  those 
were  called  who  wished  to  preserve  the  confeder- 
ate basis  by  establishing  only  a  stronger  league 
or  treaty  between  the  States)  adopted  a  plan 
which  was  embodied  in  a  series  of  nine  resolutions 
submitted  on  the  15th  June,  by  Mr.  Patterson, 
of  New  Jarsey.  The  "anti-Federalists"  adhered 
to  Randolph's  resolutions  as  their  basis  for  a 
National  Government.  The  latter  were  reported 
bac  k  without  alteration,  by  the  Committee  of  the 
Whole,  (by  7  States  to  3,  and  Maryland  divided,) 
on  a  direct  vote  between  the  two  plans;  and  on 
comparison  of  the  original  resolutions  with  the 
Constitution  itself  as  finally  adopted,  the  identity 
in  principle  and  often  in  language.,  cannot  but  be 
observed. 

The  "Federalists"  opposed  the  Randolph 
scheme  by  every  argument,  and  among  others  by 
one  analogous  to  the  remark  of  the  gentleman 
from  Marion — "that  the  Convention  held  only  the 
office  of  a  scrivener."  It  was  urged  that  they  had 
no  power  to  propose  a  plan  of  government  en- 
tirely different  from  that  of  the  confederation. 
The  answer  was— "the  fiat  is  not  to  be  here  [in 
the  Convention]  but  with  the  people."  They  ad- 
mitted, as  I  admit,  that  they  performed  the  office 
draftsmen  merely:  but  they  held,  as  I  hold,  that 
the  Constitution  they  proposed,  if  and  when 
adopted  by  the  people,  was  thenceforward  the 
people's  act  and  deed. 

Again,  turning  to  the  debate  of  June  19th, 
{Debates  p.  206)  I  find  a  long  and  able  argument 
by  Mr.  Madison  against  the  "Federal"  plan,  m 
which  he  brings  up  the  precise  doctrine  of  the 
law  of  nations,  which  was  brought  forward  by 
the  gentleman  from  Marion.  (Mr.  Redd.) 

"  If  we  consider  the  Federal  Union  [says  Mr.  M.] 
as  analagous,  not  to  the  social  compacts  among 
individual,  but  to  the  conventions  [leagues]  among 
individual  States,  what  is  the  doctrine  resulting 
from  these  Conventions?  Clearly,  according  to  the 
expositors  of  the  law  of  nations,  that  a  breach  of  any 
one  article  by  any  one  party  leaves  all  the  other  par- 
ties at  liberty  to  consider  the  whole  convention 
[compact]  as  dissolved,  unless  they  choose  rather  to 
compel  the  delinquent  party  to  repair  the  breach." 

This  is  just  the  doctrine  which  the  gentleman 
from  Marion  wants  us  to  apply  to  our  present 
Constitution;  and  the  difference  between  Mr. 
Redd  and  Mr.  Madison  is,  [as  will  be  seen  by 
reference  to  this  debate,]  that  the  latter  earnestly 
opposed  and  helped  to  defeat  Mr.  Patterson's 


156 


plan,  because  it  might  be  liable  to  the  very  con- 
struction Which  my  opponent  now  seeks  to  put 
upon  the  one  adopted  in  its  stead. 

Besides  Mr.  Madison,  whom  I  especially 
quote,  because  of  his  well  known  political  posi- 
tion, we  find,  in  the  express  declarations  of  others 
of  the  most  influential  members,  the  strongest 
evidence  that  the  change  from  a  federal  to  a  na- 
national  system  was  the  great  feature  of  the 
work  performed  by  the  Convention.  The 
questions  of  representation,  of  taxation,  of 
apportionment,  of  the  constitution  of  the  Na- 
tional Legislature,  and  so  on,  which  were  long 
and  warmly  debated,  really  turned  in  great  part 
upon  the  questions  involved  in  this  change.  But 
I  cannot  longer  trespass  on  your  patience  on  this 
head. 

The  Constitution  being  formed,  it  was  reported 
to  the  Congress,  and  afterwards  submitted  for 
ratification  to  Conventions  of  the  people,  called 
for  the  express  purpose,  in  the  several  States.  I 
must  here  again  differ  with  the  gentleman  from 
Marion.  I  find  that  even  in  the  State  of  South 
Carolina,  then,  as  now,  the  least  democratic  of 
all  the  States,  the  proposed  Constitution  being 
first  submitted  to  the  Legislature,  was  debated 
and  considered  by  them,  but  was  ratified  and 
adopted  by  a  Convention,  called  for  the  purpose 
from  the  people. 

Mr.  Redd.  I  would  ask  the  gentleman  from  St. 
Louis  whether  he  denies  that  a  State  may  act 
through  a  Convention  ? 

Mr.  Hitchcock.  No,  sir,  I  do  not  deny  that— 
I  sav  nothing  about  that  proposition.  I  simply 
make  the  point  that  the  Constitution  was  not 
ratified  by  the  States  as  such,  but  on  the  contra- 
ry, was  ratified  by  Conventions,— as  near  as  they 
could  get  to  the  people:  and  that  it  was  with  the 
express  idea  that  it  was  the  people  of  the  several 
States,  who  were  acting  and  ratifying  it,  that  the 
Conventions  in  the  States  were  called. 
•  And  just  here  I  would  notice  an  expression  fre- 
quently used  in  my  opponent's  argument :— he 
denied  "that  the  Constitution  was  formed  by  the 
people  of  the  United  States  as  one  community" 
If  by  that  he  means  that  the  whole  people  of  all 
the  States  did  not  in  one  body  adopt  it— nobody 
says  that  they  did.  On  the  contrary,  it  is  mani- 
fest that  no  matter  what  its  effect  was  to  be  in 
bringing  them  all  into  one  nation,  they  were  ob- 
liged to  vote  upon  it  separately  in  the  States,  for 
the  reason  that  until  it  had  been  adopted,  they 
were  the  people  of  thirteen  independent  separate, 
sovereign  States,  and,  of  course,  acted  separately 
as  such,  in  ratifying  and  adopting  it. 

I  turn  now,  for  a  few  brief  references,  to  the 
debates  in  one  or  two  of  the  Conventions  held  to 
ratify  the  Federal  Constitution  in  the  several 
States.  I  refer  especially  to  that  of  Virginia,  be- 
cause on  this  "  question  of  fact "  which  the  gen- 
tleman has  made,  I  want  to  go  right  to  the  strong- 


holds of  the  States  Rights  party,  and  show  how 
their  fathers  regarded  the  questions. 

First,  however,  I  read  from  the  debates  in  the 
Massachusetts  Convention,  (2  Elliot,  p.  55,)  the 
words  of  Rufus  King: 

"  The  introduction  to  this  Constitution  is  in  the 
words,  •  We,  the  people,'  &c.  The  language  of  the 
Confederation  is, '  "We,  the  States,'  &c.  The  latter  is 
a  mere  Federal  Government  ol  States." 

In  the  New  York  Convention,  Chancellor  Liv- 
ingston remarked:  [p.  214  lb.] 

"A  Republic  might  very  properly  be  formed  by  a 
league  of  States ;  but  the  laws  of  the  general  Legisla- 
ture must  act  and  be  enforced  upon  individuals.  If 
we  examine  the  history  of  Federal  Republics  whose 
legislative  powers  were  exercised  only  in  States,  in 
their  collective  capacity,  we  shall  line  in  their  funda- 
mental principles  the  seeds  of  domestic  violence  and 
consequent  annihilation.  This  was  why  1  thought 
the  old  Confederation  would  be  forever  impracti- 
cable." 

In  the  Pennsylvania  Convention,  Mr.  Wilson, 
who  had  been  a  member  of  the  Federal  Conven- 
tion, and  bore  a  prominent  part  in  the  debates, 
said: 

"The  leading  principle  in  the  politics,  and  that 
which  pervades  the  American  Constitution  is,  that 
the  Supreme  power  resides  in  the  people.  This  Con- 
stitution, Mr.  President,  opens  with  a  solemn  and 
practical  recognition  of  that  principle :  'We,  the  peo- 
ple of  the  United  States,  in  order  to  form,  &c,  &c, 
do  ordain  and  establish,  this  Constitution,"  &c.? 
&c.  It  is  announced  in  their  name— it  receives  its  po- 
litical existence  from  their  authority;  they  ordain 
and  establish  —[lb.  p.  434. 

Again,  this  same  Mr.  Wilson  used  the  follow 
ing  clear  and  striking  language.— [2  Elliot's  De- 
bates, p.  443.] 

"When  the  principle  is  once  settled  that  the  people 
are  the  source  of  authority,  the  consequence  is  that 
they  may  take  from  the  subordinate  governments 
powers  with  which  they  have  entrusted  them  and 
place  those  powers  in  the  hands  of  the  General  Gov- 
ernment, if  it  is  thought  that  then  they  will  be  pro- 
ductive of  more  good.  They  can  distribute  one  por- 
tion of  power  to  the  more  contracted  circle,  called 
State  governments ;  they  can  also  furnish  another 
proportion  to  the  government  of  the  United  States. 
Who  will  undertake  to  say,  as  a  State  officer,  that  the 
people  may  not  give  to  the  General  Government  what 
power  and  for  what  purposes,  they  please?  How 
comes  it,  sir,  that  these  State  governments  dictate  to 
their  superiors— to  the  majesty  of  the  people?  WThen 
I  say  the  majesty  of  the  people,  I  mean  the  thing,  and 
not  a  mere  compliment  to  them.  The  honorable 
gentleman  went  further,  and  said  that  the  State  gov- 
ernments were  kept  out  of  this  Government  alto- 
gether. The  truth  is— and  it  is  a  leading  principle  in 
this  system — that  not  the  States  only,  but  the  people 
also,  are  here  represented.  I  have  no  idea  that  a 
safe  system  of  power  in  the  Government  sufficient  to 
manage  the  general  interests  of  the  United  States, 
could  be  drawn  from  any  other  source,  or  vested  in 
any  other  authority,  than  that  of  the  people  at  large; 
and  I  consider  this  authority  as  the  rock  on  which 


157 


this  structure  will  stand.    If  this  principle  is  un- 
founded the  system  must  fall." 

Is  that,  sir,  the  argument  of  a  man  who  believ- 
ed the  Federal  Constitution  a  compact  between 
the  States,  as  such  ?  A  more  clear  and  admirable 
exposition  in  a  few  words,  of  the  theory  both  of 
the  source  and  distribution  of  power,  upon  which 
our  fathers  acted,  I  have  not  had  the  fortune  to 
meet :  and  it  will  be  observed  that  this  argument 
was  made  by  a  member  of  the  Federal  Convention, 
in  a  State  Convention,  called  to  debate  and  ratify 
or  reject  the  new  instrument  of  which  these  decla- 
rations were  made. 

If  we  turn  to  the  debate  in  N.  Carolina,  where 
the  Constitution  was  at  first  not  adopted  by  the 
Convention,  we  find  the  same  question  raised  as 
to  the  introductory  clause — tm  We,  the  people,  &c," 
and  also  the  objection  raised  that  the  Convention 
had  no  right  to  use  those  words. 

In  the  South  Carolina  Convention,  Mr.  Pinck- 
ney  and  others  fully  and  ably  indicated  the  prin- 
ciples of  the  proposed  Constitution,  and  we  find 
nothing  to  justify  the  theory  that  either  its  friends 
or  its  foes  supposed  it  to  be  a  league  or  compact 
of  States,  but  the  contrary. 

I  can  only  refer  to  the  debates  in  the  Virginia 
Convention,  in  which  Patrick  Henry  headed  a 
determined  opposition  to  the  Constitution,  on  the 
ground  that  it  utterly  destroyed  the  sovereignty 
of  the  States.  Listen  to  such  passages  as  these, 
from  his  speech  in  the  opening  debate : 

"  That  this  a  consolidated  government  is  demon- 
strably clear;  and  the  danger  of  such  a  government 
is  to  my  mind  very  striking.  I  have  the  highest 
veneration  for  these  gentlemen;  but,  sir,  give  me 
leave  to  demand,  What  right  had  they  to  say—"  We, 
the  people.'  Who  authorized  them  to  say,  We,  the 
people,  instead  of  We,  the  States?  States  are  the 
characteristics  and  the  soul  of  a  confederation.  If 
the  States  be  not  the  agents  of  this  compact,  it  must 
be  one  great,  consolidated,  national  government,  of 
the  people  of  all  the  States." 

To  this  appeal,  Gov.  Randolph  no  less  clearly 
replies : 

"Tue  gentleman  inquires  why  we  assumed  the 
language  of  "  We,  the  people?"  I  ask,  why  not? 
The  government  is  for  the  people,  and  the  misfortune 
is  that  the  people  had  no  agency  in  the  government 
before." 


pro- 


And  Mr.  George  Mason,  objecting  to  the 
posed  Constitution,  said  : 

"  Whether  the  Constitution  be  good  or  bad,  the 
present  clause  clearly  discovers  that  it  is  a  national 
government,  and  no  longer  a  Confederation.  I  mean 
that  claase  which  gives  the  first  hint  of  the  General 
Government  laying  direct  taxes.  The  assumption  of 
this  power  of  laying  direct  taxes,  does  of  itself  en- 
tirely change  the  confederation  of  the  States  into  one 
consolidated  government."— (3 Elliott,  pp.22,  28,  29.) 

Is  any  clearer  proof  needed  than  this  as,  to 
what  was  thought  in  the  Virginia  Convention  of 
the  nature  of  the  new  Constitution,  both  by  its 


friends  and  foes?    But  hear  Patrick  Henry, 
again : 

"The  fate  of  this  question,  and  of  America,  may 
depend  on  this.  Have  they  said,  we,  the  States? 
Have  they  made  a  proposal  of  a  compact  between  the 
States?  If  they  had,  this  would  be  a  confederation. 
It  is  otherwise  most  clearly  a  consolidated  govern- 
ment. The  question  turns,  sir,  on  that  poor  little 
thing—'  We,  the  people,  instead  of  the  States,  of 
America.'  " — (p.  44.) 

I  will  not  weary  the  Convention,  Mr.  President, 
by  reading  more  at  length.  Certainly  these  ex- 
tracts show  beyond  all  dispute  that  whatever 
might  be  thought  of  its  merits,  the  advocates  and 
the  opponents  of  the  Constitution  alike  agreed  in 
"the/act"  that  it  did  not  create  a  confederation— 
that  it  was  not  a  compact— that  it  did  not  act 
either  through  or  upon  the  States,  as  such,  but 
upon  individuals— that  it  was  to  be  ratified  by 
and  emanate  from,  and  operate  upon,  the  Peo- 
ple or  the  United  States.  On  this  ground 
it  was  attacked  by  those  who  were  jealous  for 
State  Rights  and  State  Sovereignty.  On  this 
ground  it  was  defended  by  those  whom  the  bitter 
experience  of  the  past  and  the  portentous  dan- 
gers of  the  present  had  convinced  that  in  a  na- 
tional government  alone  was  there  any  hope  for 
the  future :  and  in  my  opinion,  no  candid  man 
can  faithfully  read  those  debates  without  bein<r 
convinced  that  so  far  as  the  evidence  they  afford 
is  concerned,  the  instrument  they  related  to  was 
in  no  sense  intended  or  adopted  as  a  compact  be- 
tween sovereign  States.  I  desire  to  refer  to  but 
one  other  piece  of  cotemporary  evidence,  and 
that  is  in  the  language  of  the  form  of  ratifica- 
tion, read  and  agreed  to  and  adopted  by  the  Vir- 
ginia Convention,  as  follows : 

"We,  the  delegates  of  the  people  of  Virginia,  duly 
elected,  &c,  &c,  do,  in  the  name  and  in  behalf  of 
the  people  of  Virginia,  delare  and  make  known  that 
the  powers  granted  under  the  Constitution,  being  de- 
rived from  the  people  of  the  United  States,  be 
resumed  by  them  whensoever  the  same  shall  be  per- 
verted to  their  injury  or  oppression,"  &c,  &c. 

You  observe,  sir,  "derived  from  the  people  of 
the  United  States?"  And  this  is  the  declaration 
not  of  the  sovereign  State,  but  of  the  people  of 
Virginia,  as  part  of  the  people  of  the  United 
States.  Can  a  negative  be  more  clearly  shown 
than  by  this  exclusion  of  all  talk  of  State  action 
or  State  sovereignty? 

So  much,  Mr.  President,  for  the  "question  of 
fact,"  outside  of  the  Constitution  itself.  But  as 
I  have  repeatedly  said,  it  is  in  that  instrument 
that  we  should  look  for  the  best  evidence  of  its 
nature.  Suffer  me,  then,  to  deduce  some  consid- 
erations from  its  language  and  true  meaning,  to 
show  still  more  clearly  that  it  is  not  a  compact 
between  the  States.  Of  course,  in  doing  so,  I 
shall  have  to  go  over  ground  which  has  been  gone 
over  many  times  before.  It  would  be  very  strange 
if  I  could  hope,  on  so  momentous  a  question  as 


158 


the  theory  of  this  Government,  to  present  any 
views  which  should  be  new  or  original.  It  would 
be  strange  if,  in  the  history  of  parties  and  of  the 
country,  this  question  had  not  long  ago  been 
probed  to  its  depths.  Every  man  who  hears  me 
knows  that  it  has  been  thus  explored;  that  this 
arena  of  political  debate  has  been  the  battle- 
ground of  the  greatest  parti3s,  and  upon  which 
have  met  in  fierce  conflict  the  ablest  minds  of  the 
nation.  Yet,  I  desire,  in  this  connection  at  least, 
to  remind  you  of  the  grounds  on  which  it  is  con- 
tended that  we  are  united  as  one  people  by  a  Con- 
stitution and  not  as  States  by  a  compact,  treaty 
or  league— the  irrefutable  arguments,  as  I  con- 
sider them,  drawn  from  the  instrument  itself. 

Is  it  not  strange,  Mr.  President,  if  the  statesmen 
who  framed  that  instrument,  knew  not  the  mean- 
ing of  the  words  they  used?  Shall  we  say  that 
those  men,  patriotic,  wise,  skilled  in  all  the  prac- 
tical exigencies  of  statesmanship;  rich  in  the  ex- 
perience of  trial  and  adversity;  and  who— as  the 
debates  amply  show— did  spend  hours  and  days 
discussing  a  single  phrase,  nay  a  word,  in  all  its 
meanings,  not  from  any  captious  spirit,  but  be- 
cause they  felt  deeply  what  tremendous  conse- 
quences might  hang  upon  a  word— that  these 
men  did  not  know  what  their  own  words  meant, 
or  did  not  mean  what  those  words  express  ?  Is 
not  the  question  inevitable— if  they  meant  to 
make  a  compact,  why  did  they  not  say  compact? 
Why  did  they  not  use  the  word  league  or  confed- 
eration, or  treaty,  or  alliance?  Ihe  first  two  of 
these  words  were  used  in  the  old  Articles  of  Un- 
ion—why were  they  left  out  in  the  new?  Sir, 
read  that  preamble  over,  and  look  at  what  it  does 
mean — every  clause,  every  word  of  it. 

"  "We,  the  people  of  the  United  States,  in  order  to 
form  a  more  perfect  Union,  establish  justice,  insure 
domestic  tranquility,  provide  for  the  common  de- 
fense, promote  the  geneial  welfare,  and  secure  the 
blessings  of  liberty  to  ourselves  and  our  posterity, 
do  ordain  and  establish  this  Constitution  for  the 
United  States  of  America." 

There  is  a  world  of  meaning  in  every  clause- 
Surely,  sir,  the  men  who  signed  that  instrument, 
as  they  looked  back  over  the  troubles  through 
which  they  had  just  passed,  and  the  still  more 
threatening  difficulties  and  anxieties  which  in  so 
few  short  years  after  peace  was  declared  had  rap- 
idly arisen,  difficulties  so  great  and  anxieties  so 
pressing  as  not  even  the  struggle  of  the  Revolu- 
tion had  equalled— think  you  they  did  not  weigh 
their  words,  or  that  they  meant  nothing  by  that 
comprehensive  preamble  ?  Look  at  its  declara- 
tion of  the  purposes  to  be  achieved. 

To  form  a  more  perfect  Union — was  there 
no  need  of  this,  when  under  a  "compact  of  Sov- 
ereign States"  they  saw  already  bickerings  and 
jealousies  rife,  contests  about  lands,  conflicts  in 
legislation,' trade  driven  off  by  the  laws  of  one 
from  the  ports  of  another;  angry  complaints  ex- 


changed between  stubborn  State  Executives,  and 
the  central  authorities  powerless  to  control,  or 
pacify,  or  remedy? 

At  this  very  time  we  learn  that  the  question'of  the 
navigation  of  the  Mississippi  was  adjourned  over 
by  the  Congress,  in  order  that  the  new  Govern- 
ment might  dispose  of  it— the  people  of  Kentucky 
determined  at  all  hazards  that  it  should  be  se- 
cured, while  in  some  of  the  Eastern  States  it  was 
even  proposed  that  it  should  be  relinquished  to 
Spain. 

To  establish  justice— among  States  which 
openly  passed  laws  violating  contracts,  and 
ex  post  facto  laws,  and  bills  of  attainder;  of 
which  last  a  cruel  instance  was  mentioned  in  one 
of  the  Conventions,  whereby  the  life  of  a  citizen 
was  taken  without  even  the  form  of  a  trial :  to 
say  nothing  of  the  paper  money  of  Rhode  Island, 
the  worthless  currency  of  the  Confederation  it- 
self, and  the  laws  of  more  than  one  State,  making 
property  a  legal  tender. 

To  insure  domestic  tranquility— at  a  time, 
(1787)  when  the  alarm  caused  by  Shay's  rebellion 
hardly  yet  quieted  in  Massachusetts,  was  so  great 
that  it  is  mentioned  as  almost  the  chief  reason 
which  compelled  Washington  himself,  in  spite  of 
resolutions  long  formed,  to  end  his  days  in  quiet 
at  his  home  in  Virginia,  to  come  forth  from  his 
retirement  and  take  part  in  the  Federal  Conven- 
tion. It  is  a  striking  comment  on  the  inefficiency 
of  the  Confederation,  that  desiring  to  aid  Massa- 
chusetts in  quelling  that  formidable  outbreak— 
itself  the  result,  in  part,  of  bad  legislation  and 
oppressive  taxes — but  having  no  authority  to  raise 
troops  for  such  a  purpose,  the  Congress  author- 
ized troops  to  be  raised  to  protect  the  Western 
border  from  the  Indians,  of  which  four  regiments 
were  to  be  raised  in  Massachusetts,  for  the  real 
purpose  of  over  awing  the  rebels. 

To  provide  for  the  common  defense — a  thing 
that  had  never  been  done  save  under  the  stern  ne- 
cessity of  actual  war,  and  even  then,  under  diffi- 
culties and  at  sacrifices  which  history  clearly 
shows. 

To  promote  the  general  welfare,  and  secure 
the  blessings  of  liberty  to  ourselves  and  our  pos- 
terity. Let  us  read  these  words  with  care.  The 
blessings  of  liberty,  the  last  and  greatest  object 
to  be  secured!  Ah,  sir,  is  there  not  something 
prophetic  in  this?  Is  there  not  something  to 
which  we  may  well  recur  now,  when  the  same 
dogmas  of  State  pride  and  the  same  unyielding 
jealousy  of  State  rights— I  say  it  in  no  ©ffensive 
sense— when  the  views  of  those  who  seem  to  for- 
get that  it  is  the  destruction  of  the  whole  people 
to  insist  upon  the  rights  or  exclusive  demands  of 
any  part  of  it,  are  so  rife  among  us?  Is  theiv  not 
an  echo  of  prophetic  and  melancholy  warning  in 
these  words  for  us,  when  the  same  sentiments 
which  had  almost  brought  those  States  into  armed 
collision,  and  which  were  calling  forth  the  deep- 


159 


est  anxiety  and  lamentations  of  patriot?,  arc  now 
■earing  among  us,  unchecked,  their  horrid  front? 
Is  there  no  solemn  admonition  to  us,  that  If  we 
give  up  the  glorious  Union,  which  they  thus 
buikled — if,  in  spite  of  the  experience  of  those 
States,  we  rush  back  into  the  very  vortex  from 
Which  ihey  were  then  struggling  to  emerge,  we 
most  give  up  not  only  the  prosperiry,but  the  honor, 
the  peace,  the  liberty  itself  which  they  bequeathed 
to  us,  in  exchange  for  anarchy  and  strife,  and 
the  burdens  of  a  military  de-pot's  rule? 

Well,  sir,  they  did  "ordain  and  establish  the 
Constitution  of  the  United  States."  But  why 
ordain  and  establish  a  compact?  A  compact  is 
an  agreement.  You  may  make  an  agreement, 
but  is  an  agreement  an  ordinance?  You  and  I 
may  make  an  agreement :  two  or  more  States 
ma}r  make  an  agreement — a  treaty — a  league: 
but  why  talk  of  ordaining  it?  Thoso  words  are 
not  wi;hout  significance.  They  are  the  words  of 
fundamental  law.  They  are  not  used  in  diplo- 
matic language.  "We,  the  high  contracting 
powers,  do  mutually  agree/'  is  the  language  in 
treaties.  But  here— if  it  is  nothing  more  than  a 
compact,  as  has  been  argued — we  find  a  compact 
ordained  and  established.  Ordain  and  establish 
a  treaty !  No,  gentlemen,  that  cannot  be.  They 
"ordained  and  established  a  Constitution," — 
a  word  which  is  as  distinct  in  its  meaning  as  any 
word  in  the  English  language.  The  State  of  Mis- 
souri has  a  Constitution — what  is  that?  Does 
that  mean  a  compact  between  the  counties  of 
the  State?  The  gentlemen  who  take  this  view 
are  very  unwilling  to  give  this  word  that 
significance,  when  they  come  to  apply  it 
in  that  direction.  The  Constitution  is  the 
fundamental  law,  and  this  Constitution  an- 
swers every  requisite  and  every  description 
of  a  fundamental  law.  It  is  supreme — the  su- 
preme law  of  the  land — anything  in  the  constitu- 
tions or  laws  of  any  of  the  States— sovereign 
States,  gentlemen — to  the  contrary,  notwith- 
standing. 

And  why  is  this ?  Is  there  any  conflict  there? 
Not  at  all.  It  is  not  that  the  Constitution  of  the 
United  States  overrides  in  fact  the  Constitution 
of  the  States,  but  that,  if  through  any  misgov- 
ernment  or  usurpation,  or  unwillingness  to  carry 
out  this  fundamental  law,  a  State  should  incor- 
porate something  in  its  Constitution  which  the 
National  Constitution  forbids,  it  should  be  void — 
because  in  o  doing  the  State  authorities  would 
have  passed  beyond  the  limits  assigned  to  them — 
assigned  to  them  by  the  same  people  who  as- 
signed its  place,  its  permanent  relations  to  the 
Constitution  which  governed  them  all. 

Look  at  the  attributes  of  the  Gove  rnment.  A 
compact  is  an  agreement.  You  and  I  make  an 
agreement.  "What  does  that  mean?  Yes,  what 
does  that  mean?  An  agreement  is  an  abstract 
term.    It  is  nothing  more  than  a  description  of 


the  fact  that  you  and  I  have  mutually  undertaken, 
one  to  do  this  thing  and  the  other  to  do  that  thing, 
or  the,  opposite.  There  is  no  third  person,  no  body 
politic  incorporated  by  the  agreement;  and  ac- 
cording to  the  test  applied  to  it,  which  is  perfectly 
legitimate,  if  you  don't  do  this,  I  don't  do  that. 
And  so  that  is  the  nature,  and  the  office,  and  the 
end  of  an  agreement,  no  matter  between  whom  it 
is  made.  Now,  does  any  gentleman  say  that  our 
National  Constitution  is  such  an  agreement? 
Have  we  not  been  in  the  habit  of  supposing  that 
there  was  actually  a  Government  of  the  United 
States,  and  have  we  not  been  apph  ing  to  it  that 
name?  Have  we  not  had  an  idea — a  fancy, 
for  a  good  many  years  that  that  glorious  en- 
sign which  is  displayed  over  this  platform 
meant  something?  And  what  was  that  meaning? 
Was  it  that  we  are  merely  a  collection  of  States, 
a  conglomeration  of  sovereignties,  held  together 
on  the  abstract  ilea  of  a  compact?  No.  It  means 
one  nation — one  and  indivisible.  That  nation  holds 
a  power  Avhich  that  confederation  did  not.  That  na- 
tion has  i  he  supreme  power  of  peace,  of  war,  of 
levying  taxes,  of  collecting  revenues,  and  of  admin- 
istering to  the  welfare  of  all  its  component  parts. 
No  community  in  it  can  make  peace  or  war,  nor 
exercise  any  other  general  control.  It  is  an  actu- 
al body  politic,  with  a  will  of  its  own,  and  a  brain 
of  its  own,  and  whese  life  blood  pulsates  through 
the  great  heart  of  a  mighty  people.  It  is  not  the 
agent  of  the  States,  for  the  simple  reason  that  it 
does  not  obey  them  or  any  one  of  them.  They 
obey  it  when  there  is  any  conflict.  And  yet  can 
it  be  said  that  this  nation,  which  we  are  consider- 
ing is  a  metaphysical  entity,  a  compact — is  it  on 
a  compact  that  you  can  have  all  these  powers 
and  exercise  all  these  rights? 

We  find,  then,  that  this  Government  was  created 
for  the  purpose  of  meeting  certain  definite  evils; 
that  the  experiment  of  a  compact  had  been  fully 
tried  by  the  Confederation;  that  it  resulted  in 
failure;  that  these  evils  were  pointed  out,  and  the 
deliberate  intention  expressed  of  remedying  them 
in  the  only  way  in  which  they  could  be  remedied. 
Ic  is  this  consolidated  government  that  Patrick 
Henry  so  bitterly  inveighed  against,  and  in  which 
his  fancy  led  him  to  sec  all  the  evils  and  attend- 
ant horrors  of  tyranny.  Yet  Patrick  Henry  lived 
to  see  its  practical  application  in  peace,  and  dig- 
nity, and  strength,  and  countless  blessings  of  free- 
dom to  all  who  lived  under  it. 

I  know  perfectly  well  the  answer  made  to  all 
these  arguments.  I  know  that  the  more  clearly 
the  nature  of  our  Government  is  demonstrated, 
the  more  alarmed  some  men  become.  It  is  per- 
fectly true  that  the  State  Governments  under  the 
Constitution,  do  not  retain  their  independent  sov- 
ereignty. It  ovght  to  be  true,  for  the  simple  rea- 
son that  we  find  that  when  they  did,  they  were 
worse  off  than  if  they  had  no  Government.  We 
find  that,  before  they  could  be  brought  to  unite 


160 


in  forming  this  Government,  they  had  to  go 
through  a  bitter  experience,  which  enabled  them 
to  appreciate  alike  its  necessity  and  its  blessings. 
But  their  experience  since  then!  Is  it  not,  sir, 
the  most  ample,  the  most  forcible  refutation  of 
the  dolorous  prophecies  in  the  Convention  which 
formed  our  Constitution?  We  find  that,  where- 
as less  than  six  years  of  the  existence  of  the  Con- 
federation, demonstrated  it  to  be  an  utter  fail- 
ure, and  a  failure  because  it  was  a  Confed- 
eration and  nothing  more — we  find  that  seventy 
years  of  this  consolidated  Government — this  tyr- 
annical Government,  as  it  was  represented  to  be— 
this  Government  that  was  to  swallow  up  all  State 
sovereignty— have  proved  it  to  be  a  glorious  suc- 
cess. We  find  that,  for  seventy  or  eighty  years, 
it  has  remedied  the  evils,  obviated  the  dangers, 
avoided  the  perils,  which  that  Confederation  ut- 
terly failed  to  obviate  or  avoid.  Is  not  seventy 
years  of  experience  an  answer  to  the  arguments 
urged  against  it  ?  And  would  not  the  gentlemen 
who  argued  against  it  then  be  now  more  than 
satisfied  to  find  their  predictions  unfounded  and 
their  fears  without  reason  ?  Would  they  not  to- 
day fear  not  so  much  the  Federal  Government  as 
the  States  themselves? 

This  is  still  a  Government  of  the  people.  It  is 
the  same  people  who  have  made  a  Government 
for  this  purpose  in  one  form  and  for  another  pur- 
pose in  another.  It  is  not  two  distinct  and  oppos. 
ing  Governments,  but  one  Government,  made  by 
the  same  people,  and  both  springing  from  the  same 
popular  authority  as  their  source.  I  have  heard 
it  stated  that  Ave  are  not  one  people,  but  many 
peoples.  It  is  by  just  such  fallacies  as  this  that  I 
have  seen  people  so  mislead  that  they  talked  as 
though  there  were  two  hostile  powers,  arrayed 
one  against  the  other.  Why,  we  are  parts  of  the 
same  nation.  We  are  constituted  one  like  an- 
other. If  we  in  Missouri  want  to  change  our 
State  Government,  we  take  the  proper  means  to 
do  it ;  and  if  we  want  to  change  the  Constitution 
of  the  United  States,  we  take  the  proper  means 
to  do  that. 

But  it  is  argued  that  if  you  have  to  go  to  the 
whole  people  to  change  the  Constitution,  it  can 
hardly  be  done.  Well,  the  answer  to  that  is, 
that  if  it  is  difficult  and  dangerous  to 
change  the  Federal  Constitution  in  order  to  rem- 
edy an  evil,  it  is  ten  thousand  times  more 
dangerous  and  ruinous  to  undertake  to  remedy 
the  evil  by  secession.  There  is  a  practical  evil 
on  the  threshold,  and  which  even  those  who 
contend  for  the  right  of  secession  admit  in  their 
argument.  But  is  it  true — do  you  believe  it  to  be 
true,  that  a  reasonable  demand,  a  reasonable  ne- 
cessity, on  the  part  of  any  portion  entitled  to  the 
respect  of  the  people  of  the  people  of  this  coun- 
try, pressed  upon  the  other  portions,  would  be 
refused  ?  The  present  crisis  is  no  argument  that 
it  would  be  refused— for  we  know  that  this  crisis 


has  been  brought  about  with  the  intention  of  not 
giving  the  opportunity  to  make  that  trial.  I  de- 
sire to  call  no  hard  names.  But  every  man  who 
hears  me  knows  that  the  great  feature  in  this 
crisis  is  that  in  accordance  with  the  deliberate  de- 
sign of  bad  and  ambitious  men,  announced  long 
ago,  the  Cotton  States  have  been  "precipitated  in- 
to revolution."  Now  let  us  ask  ourselves  as  honest 
and  candid  men,  whether  we  have  not  a  better 
mode  of  meeting  all  these  difficulties  than  Seces- 
sion? I  imagine  that  we  have,  and  that  we  are 
all  satisfied  that  we  have. 

I  do  not  propose,  Mr.  President,  to  discuss 
other  questions  naturally  arising  out  of  this  great 
subject,  nor  even  to  meet  other  objections  which 
I  know  have  been  made.  They  have  been  made 
before  and  answered  before,  and  no  man  who  is 
familiar  with  the  political  history  of  this  country, 
will  be  at  a  loss  to  know  the  treasure-house  whence 
I  have  drawn  many  of  my  arguments.  I  have 
not  the  presumption  to  claim  them  as  original. 

But  I  desire  to  add  this  further  remark.  Our 
whole  system  of  free  representative  government, 
county,  State  and  National,  rests  upon  the  truth 
of  two  propositions.    Those  propositions  are, 

First,  That  there  is,  in  fact,  a  sufficient  com- 
mon interest  in  the  community  to  induce  them  to 
act  together,  and  to  unite  upon  a  basis  of  mutual 
protection  and  mutual  forbearance.  This  latter 
is  what  is  called  "  Compromise,"  in  the  true  and 
proper  sense — a  compromise  of  rights,  and  of 
policy  and  of  interests.  When  it  comes  to  com- 
promising principle,  I  prefer  to  give  that  a  differ- 
ent name. 

Secondly,  That  upon  this  fair  and  just  basis  of 
common  interests,  the  people  may  and  ought  to 
be  trusted. 

Upon  these  two  fundamental  propositions  I 
take  it  that  all  free  governments,  yes,  the  possi- 
bility of  any  free  government,  rests.  If  these  be 
true,  they  find  their  highest  and  most  benefi- 
cent expression  in  the  Constitution  of  the  United 
States.  If  they  are  false, — then  all  free  government 
is  impracticable — the  dearest  hopes  of  humani- 
ty are  a  delusion  and  a  snare — and  all  our  efforts 
and  the  life-struggles  of  patriots  everywhere  are 
but  ruinous  experiments,  to  be  washed  off  from 
the  pages  of  the  world's  history  at  the  end,  in 
tears  and  blood.  Fellow  citizens  of  Missouri — 
do  you  believe  that  this  is  true?  Will  you  assent 
to  a  doctrine  which  can  lead  you  to  any  such  con- 
clusion ? 

There  were  other  propositions  advanced  by  the 
gentleman  from  Marion,  which  I  should  have 
been  glad  to  notice.  But  I  have  sought  only  to 
present,  and  I  have  done  so  imperfectly  enough— 
the  leading  historical  points  in  relation  to  his 
"question  of  fact,"  with  the  fair  deductions  from 
them  There  were  other  statements  which  if  I 
had  time  I  should  be  glad  to  answer .  There  were 
admissions,  too,  which  somewhat  surprised  me. 


161 


For  instance,  in  his  catalogue  of  the  grievan- 
ces of  the  South,  he  complained  of  wrongs 
on  the  part  of  the  Federal  Government.  At  the 
same  lime,  he  condemned  the  acts  of  the  seceding 
States,  as  without  sufficient  cause  or  justification. 
Now,  I  could  not  hut  remember  that  not  long  since 
a  gentleman  addressed  this  Convention,  in  the 
character  of  Commissioner  from  the  seceding 
State  of  Georgia,  who  justified  her  act  of  seces- 
sion, and  invited  Missouri  to  join  in  it.  Yet  that 
Commissioner  begun  with  the  distinct  avowal 
that  the  State  of  Georgia  did  not  complain  either 
of  the  Federal  Constitution,  nor  of  any  act  of  the 
Federal  Government.  I  could  not  but  admire  the 
magnanimity  of  my  fiiend  from  Marion  (I  hope 
I  may  call  him  such)  in  this,  that  while  he  be- 
lieved the  wrongs  of  the  South  to  be  even  greater 
than  those  of  which  the  Commissioner  from 
Georgia  complained,  yet  he  was  willing  to  stay  in 
the  Union.  I  take  this  to  be  proof  of  his  genuine 
devotion  to  the  Union  after  all,  and  I  am  sure 
that  he  who  has  that  feeling,  when  he  comes  to 
consider,  both  from  the  teachings  of  history  and 
the  deductions  of  reason,  that  this  Union  was 
made  to  escape  the  very  perils  which  they  are 
rushing  into,  he  will  also  find  that  devotion  to  the 
Union  is  the  best  opposition  that  can  be  offered 
to  all  such  political  heresies  as  I  consider  the  right 
of  secession  to  be. 

I  do  not  propose  at  this  time,  Mr.  President,  to  of- 
fer any  remarks  upon  the  report  of  the  Committee 
on  Federal  Relations.  I  will  simply  say  that  as 
a  whole,  I  approve  the  Report,  though  there  are 
some  things  in  it  which  I  should  prefer  to  see  al- 
tered. T  should  be  glad  to  state  some  objections 
which  I  have  to  portions  of  it,  and  also  to  some 
of  the  resolutions.  But  I  content  myself  now  by 
saying  that  it  is  a  "Union  Report,"  presenting  no 
ultimatum ,  uttering  no  threat,  seeking  to  main- 
tain the  dignity  of  Missouri  in  an  attitude  of 
peace.  And  I  shall  express  my  sentiments  by 
my  vote. 

This  amendment,  sir,  I  earnestly  trust  the  Con- 
vention will  not  adopt.  It  looks  towards  nullifi- 
cation; it  certainly  may  be  construed  to  be  a 
threat;  it  seeks  to  pledge  us  to  a  cotirse  of  action 
in  ;;n  indefinite  future;  and  it  anticipates  trouble 
without  just  or  manly  grounds.  Now  if  it  were 
liable  but  to  any  one,  instead  of  all  these  objec- 
tions,—had  we  not  better  let  well  enough  alone? 

I  desire  nothing  more,  sir,  in  this  whole  matter, 
than  that  our  action  and  expression  shall  be  such 
as  to  command  the  respect  and  admiration  of  all 
parts  of  this  country.  I  need  not  repeat  the  ar- 
guments which  should  move  us  in  view  of  our 
position  and  true  interest.  I  need  not  remind  you 
of  the  resources  of  Missouri,  of  her  magnificent  fu- 
ture, of  her  central  position  m  this  valley,  and  in  the 
heart  of  this  continent,  destined  to  be  the  path- 
way of  the  commerce  of  the  world.    All  these 


considerations  appeal  to  us  to  remain  in  the 
Union.  Yet,  sir,  it  is  not  to  these  that  I  would 
point,  I  would  not  desire  to  base  our  action  upon 
any  advantage  which  this  or  that  policy  might 
secure.  I  should  scorn  to  advocate  any  measure 
on  this  floor  on  a  basis  of  policy  merely.  Let  us 
look  deeper— let  us  aim  higher.  Now,  more 
than  even  in  the  history  of  this  State,  does  it  be- 
hoove us  to  see  clearly,  to  judge  patiently,  hon- 
estly, wisely,  of  our  true  relations  to  all  with 
whom  we  are  connected,  and  to  take  that  course 
which  loyalty  and  duty  shall  point  out.  Well 
may  we,  each  one  of  us,  recall  the  touching  lan- 
guage of  the  President:  ''You  have  no  oath 
registered  in  Heaven  to  destroy  this  Govern- 
ment." Nay,  sir,  we  too  have  taken  a  solemn 
vow  to  support  and  protect  it.  We  can  best  ful- 
fill that  vow,  as  we  all  desire  to  do,  by  showing 
that  neither  the  blind  impulse  of  passion,  nor  the 
sinister  persuasions  of  those  who— whether 
from  intention  or  misunderstanding  their  posi- 
tion,— have  done  wrong — that  no  such  per- 
suasion can  mislead  us :  by  showing  that 
we  know  and  will  respond  to  our  duties  to  our 
common  government :  that  in  true  and  loyal  and 
patriotic  allegiance,  come  what  will,  we  will  be' 
faithful  to  the  Constition  that  has  so  long  pro- 
tected us :  and  that  as  a  portion  of  the  people  of 
the  United  States,  we  will  demand  and  insist  that 
the  government  of  this  people  be  preserved  for 
this  people, — amended,  if  need  be,  by  this  peo- 
ple,—but  that  destroyed  and  ruined  it  shall  not 
be. 

I  know,  well,  sir,  that  this  position  will  be  tak- 
en, and  these  views  advocated  by  tongues  more 
eloquent  than  mine.  Yet  I  am  rejoiced  to  bear 
even  this  humble  testimony  in  its  behalf. 

Mr.  Dunn,  of  Rat.  Mr.  President  and  gen- 
tlemen of  the  Convention :  Before  the  vote  shall 
be  taken  on  the  amendment  offered  by  the  gen- 
tleman from  Clay,  (Mr,  Moss,)  to  the  fifth 
resolution,  reported  by  the  Committee  on  Federal 
Relations,  I  desire  to  call  the  attention  of  the  Con- 
vention to  the  precise  nature  and  character  of  that 
amendment.  It  will  be  seen  by  a  careful  exami- 
nation and  comparison  of  the  resolution  and 
amendment,  that  there  is  a  perfect  harmony  be- 
tween them,  and  that  the  amendment  gives  to  the 
principles  enunciated  in  the  resolution,  a  more 
specific  application,  and  carries  them  to  their 
proper  logical  conclusion.  The  resolution  is  as 
follows : 

"5.  Resolved,  That,  in  the  opinion  of  this  Con- 
vention, the  employment  of  military  force  by  the 
Federal  Government  to  coerce  the  submission  of 
the  seceding  States,  or  the  employment  of  mili- 
tary force  by  the  seceding  States  to  assail  the 
Government  of  the  United  States,  will  inevitably 
plunge  this  country  into  civil  war,  and  thereby 
entirely  extinguish  all  hope  of  an  amicable  set- 

11 


162 


tlemcnt  of  the  fearful  issues  now  pending  before 
the  country;  we  therefore  earnestly  entreat,  as 
well  the  Federal  Government  as  the  seceding 
States,  to  withhold  and  stay  the  arm  of  military 
power,  and  on  no  pretense  whatever,  bring  upon 
the  nation  the  horrors  of  civil  war." 

The  resolution  condemns  the  employment  of 
military  force  by  the  Federal  Government,  to  co- 
erce the  submission  of  the  seceding  States,  and 
condemns  the  employment  of  military  force  by 
the  seceding  States  to  assail  the  Government  of 
the  United  States,  assigning  as  a  reason  for  such 
condemnation,  that  the  employment  of  military 
force  by  either  party,  for  such  a  purpose,  would 
plunge  the  country  into  a  civil  war,  and  thereby 
extinguish  all  hope  of  an  amicable  settlement  of 
the  fearful  issues  now  pending  before  the  coun- 
try ;  and  both  parties  are  entreated  to  withhold 
and  stay  the  arm  of  military  power,  and  on  no 
pretense  whatever,  to  bring  upon  the  nation  the 
horrors  of  civil  war.  The  amendment  is  as  fol- 
lows: 

Amend  the  fifth  resolution  by  adding: 
'And  further  believing  that  the  welfare  of  Mis- 
souri depends  upon  the  peaceablo  adjustment  of 
our  present  difficulties,  she  will  not  countenance 
or  aid  a  seceding  State  in  making  war  on  the 
General  Government,  nor  will  she  furnish  men 
and  money  for  the  purpose  of  aiding  the  General 
Government  in  any  attempt  to  coerce  a  seceding 
State." 

While  the  resolution,  in  effect,  declares  that  the 
welfare  of  the  whole  country,  depends  upon  the 
preservation  of  the  peace,  and  the  amicable  set- 
tlement of  the  fearful  issues  pending  before  the 
country,  the  amendment  gives  to  that  declara- 
tion a  specific  application,  by  asserting  that  the 
welfare  of  Missouri  depends  upon  the  peaceable 
adjustment  of  our  present  difficulties;  and  while 
the  original  resolution  condemns  in  strong  lan- 
guage the  employment  of  military  force  by  either 
party  against  the  other,  the  amendment  draws 
the  proper  conclusion  from  the  principles  con- 
tained in  the  resolution,  and  says  that  Missouri 
will  not  countenance  or  aid  a  seceding  State  in 
making  Avar  on  the  General  Government,  nor  will 
she  furnish  men  and  money  for  the  purpose  of 
aiding  the  General  Government  in  any  attempt 
to  coerce  a  seceding  State.  The  resolution  con- 
demns as  wrong,  the  waging  of  war  by  either 
party  against  the  other,  and  earnestly  entreats 
both  parties  to  withhold  the  arm  of  military 
power  ,and  the  amendment  pledges  Missouri  not 
to  countenance,  aid  or  participate  in  doing,  what 
the  resolution  denounces  as  wrong. 

I  am  astonished  at  the  objections  that  have 
been  raised  against  this  amendment,  by  many 
who  have  participated  in  this  discussion.  It 
seems  to  be  greatly  misunderstood  by  those  who 
are  opposing  it.  It  has  been  charged  as  a  seces- 
sion movement.    If  the  resolution  contains  good 


Union  doctrines,  and  this  no  one  controverts,  the 
amendment  is  not  only  free  from  the  taint  of  se- 
cession, but  is  more  strongly  Union  than  the  res- 
olution. 

Let  the  amendment  be  analyzed,  and  it  will 
be  found  to  contain  three  propositions,   and  but 
three;  and  I  challenge  any  member  on  this  floor 
to  present  a  substantial  objection  to  either  of  the 
propositions.    It  asserrs,  first,  that  the  welfare  of 
Missouri  depends  upon  the  peaceable  adjustment 
of  our  present  difficulties;  secondly,  that  Mis- 
souri will  not  countenance  or  aid  a  seceding  State 
in  making  war  on  the  General  Government;  and 
thirdly,  that  Missouri  will  not  furnish  men  and 
money  for  the  purpose  of  aiding  the  General  Gov- 
ernment, in  any  attempt  to  coerce  a  seceding 
State.    This  is  the  whole  extent  of  the    amend- 
ment.   If  the  resolution  which  in  effect  makes  the 
destiny  of  the  nation  depend  upon  the  amicable 
settlement  of  the  fearful  issues  now  pending  be- 
fore the  country  be  true,  it  is  especially  true  that 
the  welfare  of  Missouri,  which  is  an  integral 
part  of  the  nation,   and  which,  from    her    geo- 
graphical position,  would,  in  the  event  of  a  dis- 
solution of  the  Union,  be  a  frontier  State,  depends 
upon   the  peaceable  adjustment  of  our   present 
difficulties.    As  Missouri  would  suffer  more  than 
any  other  State  from  a  final  dissolution  of  the 
Umon,    so   her  welfare  is  more  deeply  involved 
than  that  of  any  other  State,  in  preserving  the 
Union  by  a  peaceable  adjustment  of  our  national 
troubles.    But  I  will  not  elaborate  this  position, 
because  it  has  not  been  seriously  controverted. 
The     second     proposition     contained    in    the 
amendment  is,  that  Missouri  will   not    counte- 
nance or  aid  a  seceding  State  in  making  war  on 
the  General  Government.    Presuming   that    no 
member  on  this  floor  would  be  willing  that  Mis- 
souri should  join  the  seceding  States  in  making 
war  upon  the  United  Slates,  I  cannot  imagine 
what  possible  objection  can  be  taken  to  this  po- 
sition in  the  amendment.    If  the  United  States 
should  wragc  a  war  of  conquest  against  the  seced- 
ing States,  this  part  of  the  amendment  leaves 
our  State  perfectly  free  to  determine  whether  she 
will  do  as  Virginia,  North  Carolina,  Tennessee, 
and  Kentucky,  stand  pledged  to  do,  and  that  is, 
to  make  common  cause  with  the  seceding  States, 
and  resist  the  invasion;  or,  whether  she  will  re- 
tain a  neutral  position.     "  Sufficient  for  the  day 
is  the  evil  thereof."    I  hope  that  no  such  issue 
may   ever   be   made;    but   if  it   should   be,    I 
trust  we  will  meet  it  as  becomes  men  and  patriots. 
The  last  position  taken  by  the  amendment,  is  the 
one    against    which    the    principal    objections 
have  been  made.    And  I  ask  if  there  is  a  member 
of  this  Convention  who  thinks  that  the  General 
Government  ought  to  coerce  the  seceding  States 
into  submission  ?    No  one  has  been  bold  enough 
to  avow  himself  a  coercionist.    No  coercionist 
can,  consistently  with  his  position,  vote  for  this 


163 


amendment.  And  if  any  member  on  this  floor 
regards  it  to  be  the  duty  of  the  General  Govern- 
ment to  employ  military  force  to  coerce  the  sece- 
ding States  into  submission,  such  a  member  could 
not  support  the  resolution  reported  by  the  Com- 
mittee on  Federal  Relations,  and  if  he  would  re- 
gard it  to  be  the  duty  of  Missouri  to  furnish 
men  and  money  to  aid  in  attempting 
such  coercion,  he  cannot  vote  for  this  amend- 
ment. There  is,  however,  nothing  in  this  last 
clause  of  the  amendment  which  will  preclude  Mis- 
souri from  defending  the  General  Government,  if 
the  seceding  States  should  wage  a  war  upon  the 
General  Government. 

A  prominent  objection  to  the  amendment  is, 
that  it  pledges  Missouri  against  aiding  the  Gene- 
ral Government  in  enforcing  the  laws.  Military 
coercion  against  the  seceding  Stafes  for  the  pur- 
pose of  subjugating  them,  is  a  very  different  thing 
from  enforcing  the  laws.  Neither  the  resolution 
nor  the  amendment  pledges  the  State  to  any  thing 
in  regard  to  the  enforcement  of  the  laws.  That  is 
left  to  be  determined  by  the  provisions  of  the 
Constitution.  But  to  prevent  any  misunder- 
standing of  my  views  in  regard  to  the 
enforcement  of  the  laws,  I  will  say  what 
every  one  acquainted  with  the  theory 
of  our  Government  must  recognize  as 
true,  that  the  military  power  of  the  Govern- 
ment can  only  he  brought  to  the  aid  of  the  civil 
authorities  in  enforcing  the  laws,  when  the  civil 
authorities,  without  such  aid,  are  not  strong 
enough  for  the  purpose.  The  military  power  of 
the  Government  is  placed  by  the  Constitution  in 
subordination  to  the  civil  power.  The  laws  can- 
not be  enforced,  constitutionally,  by  mere  milita- 
ry power. .  Where  there  is  no  civil  officer,  to  call 
in  the  aid  of  the  military  power,  the  enforcement 
of  the  laws  by  military  force  would  be  palpably 
unconstitutional.  And  as  there  is  not  a  single  offi- 
cer in  the  seceding  States,  holding  a  commission 
under  the  Government  of  the  United  States, 
the  Government  has  no  constitutional  au- 
thority to  send  an  army  into  those 
States  to  enforce  the  laws.  To  do  so  would 
be  to  trample  the  Constitution  under  foot.  This 
is  true  in  regard  to  the  enforcement  of  the  laws 
in  those  States,  and  to  the  collection  of  the  rev- 
enue at  the  ports.  If  a  county  or  district  in  this 
State  were  destitute  of  civil  officers,  Gov.  Jack- 
son could  not,  without  a  violation  of  the  Consti- 
tution, send  a  military  force  into  such  county  or 
district  to  collect  debts,  try  criminals,  and  enforce 
the  laws.  An  army  cannot  be  marched  into  the 
seceding  States  under  the  pretext  of  enforcing 
the  laws,  where  there  is  not  a  solitary  civil  officer 
of  the  United  States,  without  a  clear  violation  of 
the  Constitution. 

The  provision  of  the  Constitution  of  the  United 
States,  authorizing  the  militia  to  be  called  out  to 
repel  invasions,  has  been  read  and  relied  upon, 


!  as  a  means  of  getting  an  army  into  the  seceding 
i   States.    It  cannot  be  supposed  that  the  wise  and 
!  patriot  framers  of  the  Constitution  in  clothing  the 
Government  of  the  United   States  with   authority 
|  to  repel  invasions  of  the  States,  thereby  designed 
!  that  the  Government  of  the  United  States  should 
I  itself  have  the  power  to  invade  a  State  with  an  ar- 
my for  the  purpose  of  subjugating  it.    To  take 
the  hypothetical  case,  so  forcibly  stated  by  my 
colleague  from  Clinton  (Mr.   Birch,)  if  a  foreign 
army  should  be  landed  in  South  Carolina  to  con- 
quer that  State,  the  Government  of  the  United 
!  States  would,  under  the  power  to  repel  invasions, 
j  have  a  constitutional  right  to  march  an  army  in- 
to South  Carolina  and  repel  the  invaders.    But  it 
does  not  logically  follow  from  this,  that  the  Gov- 
ernment of  the  United  States  could,   constitution- 
ally, send  an  army  iuto  South  Carolina  to  subjugate 
that  State.    The  employment  of  military  force  by 
the  General  Government  to  coerce  the  seceding 
States  into  submission,   is  unconstitutional,   and 
we  ought  to  be  willing  to  pledge  Missouri  not  to 
furnish  men  or  money  to  aid  in  violating  the  Con- 
stitution. 

It  cannot  be  that  this  Convention,  a  majoriry 
of  whose  members  were  born  in  the  States  of 
Virginia,  Kentucky,  Tennessee  and  North  Caro- 
lina, with  the  fact  staring  us  in  the  face  that 
these  States  are  already  pledged  to  unite  with  the 
seceding  States  in  resisting  military  coercion,  if 
it  should  be  attempted  by  the  General  Govern- 
ment— it  cannot  be,  that  those  of  us  who  hail 
from  those  States — it  cannot  be  that  any  member 
of  this  Convention,  would  be  willing  to  involve 
Missouri  in  the  suicidal  act  of  aiding  the  General 
Government  in  an  attempt  to  coerce  the  seceding 
States.  It  would  be  a  mere  attempt.  Disaster 
and  ruin  would  be  the  result.  The  Northern  in- 
vaders would  be  driven  back.  A  civil  war  more 
bloody  than  any  recorded  in  the  pages  of  history 
would  follow.  Instead  of  coercing  the  seven  se- 
ceding States  into  the  Union,  eight  more  States 
would  be  forced  out  of  the  Union.  The  whole 
country,  North  and  South,  would  be  drenched 
with  fraternal  blood.  I  am  unwilling  to  engage 
in  this  fratricidal  strife. 

But  suppose  coercion  should  prove  successful. 
Suppose  the  invaders  should  succeed  in  bringing 
the  Southern  States  back  into  the  Union,  as  con- 
quered provinces.  This  would  not  be  the  Union 
established  by  our  forefathers.  A  military  despo- 
tism, the  worst  form  of  government,  would  be 
established  upon  the  ruins  of  the  Constitution. 
Let  us  test  the  soundness  of  the  principles  enun- 
ciated in  this  amendment,  by  considering  the  ef- 
fect of  their  adoption  by  Missouri,  and  by  all  the 
States.  Civil  war  would  then  be  an  impossibility. 
And  being  relieved  of  all  apprehensions  of  hav- 
ing our  efforts  to  save  the  Union  blasted  by  the 
inauguration  of  civil  war,  we  could  confidently 
hope  for  the    adjustment  of  all  our  troubles. 


164 


But  some  gentlemen  have  said  that  there  are 
no  troubles  to  settle,  that  nobody  is  hurt,  and  that 
our  grievances  are  imaginary.  The  Union  can- 
not be  saved  by  ignoring  the  startling  events  of 
the  last  few  months,  and  crying  peace,  peace, 
when  there  is  no  peace.  The  fierce  storm  that 
has  precipitated  seven  States  out  of  the  Union, 
will,  if  it  be  permitted  to  rage  on  with  unchecked 
fury,  destroy  our  Government.  It  must  be  al- 
layed, or  a  dissolution  of  the  Union  is  only  a 
question  of  time.  I  do  not  envy  the  man  who, 
in  limes  like  these,  can  fold  his  arms  and  say  that 
nobody  is  hurt.  We  are  all  hurt.  We  are  hurt 
by  the  financial  ruin  consequent  upon  our  na- 
tional troubles.  We  are  more  deeply  hurt  by  the 
loss  of  seven  of  our  sister  States,  the  blotting  of 
seven  stars  from  our  flag.  You  might  as  well  say 
that  a  father  is  not  hurt  by  the  loss  of  beloved 
children,  as  to  say  that  a  patriot  is  not  hurt  by 
the  loss  of  seven  States  from  the  Union. 

The  Union  cannot  be  saved  by  denouncing  the 
South.  And  the  man  who  regards  the  secession 
of  the  Gulf  States  as  the  cause  of  our  troubles 
takes  a  superficial  view  of  the  subject.  Secession 
is  not  the  cause  but  an  effect — an  effect  which  I 
deeply  deplore,  an  effect  which  ought  not  to  have 
followed;  still  it  is  but  an  effect.  The  cause  of 
our  National  troubles  is  to  be  traced  to  that  anti- 
slavery  party,  that  disregarding  the  solemn  warn- 
ing of  the  father  of  his  country  against  the  for- 
mation of  geographic  or  sectional  parties,  has,  in 
the  late  Presidential  election  obtained  the  con- 
trol of  the  General  Government.  It  is  the  propa- 
gation of  the  unconstitutional  dogmas  of  this  sec- 
tional party  that  has  brought  our  troubles  upon  us. 

If,  as  has  justly  been  said,  the  mission  of  Mis- 
souri is  to  act  as  mediator,  in  the  peaceable  adjust- 
ment of  our  national  troubles,  let  us  make  our 
action  effective.  Let  us  take  our  position  in  favor 
of  the  Crittenden  amendments  to  the  Constitu- 
tion of  the  United  States.  Let  us  appeal  from  the 
decision  of  the  leaders  of  the  dominant  party  in 
the  North,  to  the  people  of  the  United  States.  I 
confidently  believe  that  success  will  crown  our 
efforts.  The  Union  must  be  preserved.  This  cannot 
be  done  by  a  surrender  of  our  constitutional  rights. 
The  Constitution  is  the  bond  of  Union,  and  it  is 
the  instrument  by  which  our  most  important 
rights  under  the  government  are  secured. 

The  Union  of  the  States,  like  the  matrimonial 
union,  was  founded  in  mutual  affection,  mutual 
dependence,  and  mutual  interest.  The  patriotic 
men  who  formed  our  glorious  Union  had  passed  to- 
gether through  the  fiery  ordeal  of  the  Revolution, 
and  cherished  for  each  other  a  strong  affection, 
and  if  the  mutual  affection  of  the  different  sec- 
tions of  the  Union  has  been  impaired,  that  mutu- 
al affection  must  be  restored.  If  the  matrimoni- 
al union  should  be  endangered  by  the  loss  of  the 
affection  which  led  to  its  formation,  the  restora- 
tion of  mutual  affection  is  the  only  means  of  se- 


curing the  blessings  which  that  union  was  de- 
signed to  secure.  There  is  another  point  of  anal- 
ogy between  the  union  of  the  States  and  the  mat- 
rimonial union — there  must  be  no  coercion  in 
either  case.  If  I  had  been  blessed  with  a  daugh- 
ter, she  should  not  marry  a  coercionist,  lest  he 
would  chastise  her. 

Let  us  settle  our  national  troubles  amicably, 
upon  a  basis  that  will  secure  to  us  our  constitu- 
tional rights,  and  when  fraternal  feeling  shall  be 
restored,  let  us  turn  to  the  seceding  States,  and 
say  to  them,  "Behold  how  good  and  how  pleas- 
ant it  is  for  brethren  to  dwell  together  in  unity." 
We  may  win  them  back  by  justice,  by  modera- 
tion, and  by  the  firm  establishment  of  our  consti- 
tutional rights.  The  preservation  of  the  peace  is 
necessary  for  the  preservation  of  the  Union.  The 
amendment  of  the  gentleman  from  Clay  is  a  bet- 
ter peace  measure  than  the  resolution  of  the  Com- 
mittee, and,  as  a  Union  man,  I  will  give  it  my 
cordial  support,  and  I  hope  that  all  true  friends 
of  the  Union  will  vote  for  the  adoption  of  the 
amendment. 

Mr.  Allen.  I  do  not  propose  to  make  a 
speech.  I  will  ask  the  Judge  one  question,  be- 
fore my  remarks,  so  that  I  may  enlighten  some 
of  my  friends  on  the  right.  I  did  not  understand 
him  exactly  with  reference  to  his  daughter  mar- 
rying a  coercionist.  Does  he  mean  to  imply 
that  he  wOuld  be  in  favor  of  her  marrying  a 
secessionist  ? 

Mr.  Dunn.  I  don't  want  her  to  marry  a  coer- 
cionist, nor  a  secessionist,  nor  a  submissionist — I 
want  her  to  marry  a  man  who  is  sound  on  the 
Union  question.     [Laughter.] 

Mr.  Allen.  With  this  explanation  I  will  pro- 
ceed. We  have  had  quite  a  number  of  speeches, 
and  I  should  not  have  got  up  and  said  anything 
myself,  but  from  the  fact  that  my  friend  from 
Ray  has  rather  called  out  his  friends  from  North 
Carolina,  Virginia,  Kentucky  and  Tennessee.  I 
happened  to  be  born  and  raised  in  Tennessee,  near 
Kitt  Billett's  mill,  [Laughter,]  and  I  felt  it  was 
proper  I  should  make  a  few  remarks  in  answer. 
My  friend  seems  to  think  that  it  is  indispensible 
that  we  should  vote  for  this  amendment.  He 
seems  to  think  that  upon  it  depends  whether 
we  shall  be  hastened  into  an  interminable  war  or 
not.  I  have  not  so  viewed  this  subject.  Al- 
though I  am  one  of  those  Southern  gentle- 
men to  whom  he  refers,  I  had  made  up  my 
mind,  soon  after  reading  the  majority  report, 
that  I  should  vote  for  that  report,  because  it  was 
conceived  in  the  right  kind  of  spirit;  it  breathes 
a  conciliatory  fraternal  spirit- 

[Mr.  Allen  here  read  a  part  of  the  report,  and 
said  it  met  his  hearty  approval.  ] 

Mr.  President,  that  this  difficulty  has  grown 
out  of  alienated  feeling,  that  has  been  gotten  up 
between  the  North  and  the  South,  to  a  great  ex- 
tent, at  least,  I  venture  no  person  who  has  looked 


165 


dispassionately  at  this  thing  will  for  a  moment 
doubt.  That  the  Abolition  Societies  in  the  North, 
organized  a  number  of  years  ago,  have  excited 
the  people  upon  that  particular  subject,  and 
agitated  the  popular  mind,  and  that  political 
leaders  and  demagogues  discovered  that  it  was 
an  excellent  thing  to  take  hold  of,  in  order  to  be 
lifted  into  power,  and  did  take  hold  of  it  and 
fanned  the  flame  until  the  prejudice  of  the  people 
in  the  South  became  aroused,  no  one,  I  imagine, 
can  deny.  All  these  things  have  been  discussed 
for  the  last  few  days,  and  it  seems  to  me  it  would 
be  needless  for  us  further  to  investigate  them. 

But,  Mr.  President,  we  are  all  American  citi- 
zens, and  in  order  to  accomplish  that  for  which 
we  came  here,  we  must  work  in  that  kind  of  spirit 
which  is  indicated  in  the  report,  and  manifest  it 
to  our  brethren  in  the  North  and  the  South.  It  is 
argued  by  gentlemen  here,  that  the  State  of  Mis- 
souri should  take  a  mediatorial  position.  I  hear- 
tily acquiesce  in  that  course.  I  believe  it  is  the 
position  we  ought  to  occupy,  and  that  our  influ- 
ence should  be  exerted  to  accomplish  that  object. 

My  friend  from  Ray  tells  us  that  he  wants  this 
amendment  adopted  from  the  consideration  that 
his  particular  friend  (Mr.  Moss,  from  Clay)  has 
introduced  it,  and  that  he  would  feel  perfectly 
safe  to  vote  for  most  anything  which  should  come 
from  that  gentleman.  I  do  not  see  any  reason 
why  we  should  vote  for  a  proposition  that 
comes  from  Mr.  Moss,  or  any  other  man.  If 
it  suits  us,  we  should  vote  for  it.  But  as  to  my- 
self, I  will  say  that  I  shall  not  vote  for  that 
amendment.  We  came  pledged  here  to  do,  what? 
To  keep  Missouri  in  this  Union.  That  is  what 
nine-tenths,  at  least,  of  the  members  of  this  Con- 
vention were  sent  here  for ;  and  I  am  satisfied  that 
if  any  member  of  this  Convention  had  gone  among 
the  people,  pledging  himself  to  vote  for  resolutions 
that  would  tend  to  destroy  our  connection  with  the 
General  Government,  he  would  not  have  been 
elected.  I  tell  you  that  the  people  all  over  this 
country,  as  the  gentleman  has  properly  remarked, 
are  anxious  about  this  thing.  They  have  been 
stirred  about  this  question.  Their  interests  are 
involved.  They  desire  the  speedy  settlement  of 
these  difficulties,  and  they  think  it  is  wiser 
to  try  to  settle  them  in  the  Union  than 
out  of  it.  There  is  no  good  reason  why 
we  should  go  out  of  the  Union.  There  is 
no  man  who  has  ever  squinted  toward  seces- 
sion in  the  advocacy  of  this  doctrine,  that 
has  ever  shown  one  good  reason  why  Mis- 
souri should  leave  the  Union.  With  her  geo- 
graphical position,  surrounded  as  she  is  by  free 
territory  on  nearly  all  sides,  it  would  be  madness, 
and  worse  than  madness,  for  her  to  secede.  We, 
sir,  take  grounds  against  everything  and  any- 
thing, under  existing  contingencies,  that  will 
have  the  tendency  toward  or  squint  toward  our 
dissolving  our  connection -with  the  General  Gov- 


ernment. I  know  we  are  for  this  sometimes 
called  Black  Republicans.  Well,  I  never  ran 
tor  an  office  in  my  life.  The  first  politi- 
cal speech  I  ever  undertook  to  make  was  last 
month,  when  I  conducted  the  canvass  for  a  posi- 
tion in  this  Convention;  and  I  tell  you  I  am  not 
influenced  by  political  motives  at  all,  and  I  have 
no  fears  about  what  I  am  called.  I  do  not  ask  for 
political  position,  nor  do  I  ever  expect  to  aspire 
to  a  political  position.  I  do  not  care  what  a  man 
calls  me,  so  I  am  acting  according  to  my  best 
convictions  of  right  and  duty  to  my  country.  But 
I  may  as  well  say  that  this  way  of  calling  names 
is  having  a  bad  influence.  It  is  calculated  to 
arouse  ill  feelings.  i"do  not  call  a  man  a  Seces- 
sionist, nor  a-  Republican,  if  he  differs  with 
me,  when  I  say  that  such  is  the  spirit  which 
seems  to  pervade  this  Convention  in  regard 
to  conciliatory  measures.  We  all  claim  to  be 
Union-loving  men.  I  believe  ia  the  proverb  that 
"charity  begins  at  home,  and  it  is  due  we 
should  be  amicably  and  fraternally  disposed  to- 
ward each  other.  I  first  look  at  my  own  inte- 
rests; I  secondly  look  at  the  interests  of  my  State, 
and  of  the  General  Government ;  and  I  am  satis- 
fied that,  taking  that  view  of  the  subject,  it  is 
largely  to  our  interest  to  stick  on  to  the  Union. 

We  have  had  some  very  long  speeches  on  the 
constitutionality  of  secession.  We  have  had  a 
good  many  speeches  on  all  subjects  connected 
with  the  matter  under  consideration.  True,  some 
have  been  very  long  ones.  In  listening  to  them 
I  have  been  occasionally  reminded  of  the  two  old 
ladies  that  drank  coffee  together.  One  of  them 
said  it  was  very  good  coffee.  Yes,  said  the  other, 
but  one  has  to  drink  a  great  deal  of  water  to  get 
a  little  coffee.  [Laughter.]  That  has  been  the 
way  with  a  good  many  speeches  on  this  floor. 

Sir,  we  talk  about  coercion  and  secession  and 
all  this  sort  of  thing.  Now,  I  believe  it  is  gen- 
erally conceded,  by  most  everybody,  that  there  is 
no  constitutional  right  to  secede.  It  must  be 
revolutionary.  As  far  as  the  doctrine  of  coer- 
cion is  concerned,  we  should  deem  it  to  be 
bad  policy.  There  is  no  such  thing,  gentle- 
men, as  coercing  the  Southern  States  back 
into  this  Union,  and  keeping  them  there. — 
The  American  people  are  not  of  that  kind 
of  stuff.  You  can  coax  the  American  people, 
but  you  cannot  drive  them.  It  is  folly,  and  worse 
than  folly,  to  talk  about  it.  You  might  go  down 
and  overpower  them.  You  might  for  a  time  con- 
quer them  and  bring  them  back,  but  would  they 
stay  back?  No;  they  wrould  be  like  the  old  hen 
in  the  anecdote,  that  could  not  be  made  to  sit 
down,  but  would  sit  a  standing.  [Laughter.] 
This  thing  has  got  to  be  settled  upon  the  principle 
of  compromise,  and  the  American  people,  if  we 
can  get  at  them  properly,  are  a  compromising 
people.  We  do  not  presume,  gentlemen,  we 
can    get    those    leaders    of  the  Northern  party, 


166 


who  have  recently  been  elected  under  a  political 
excitement,  to  abrogate  all  the  declarations  made 
by  them  during  the  canvass,  and  accede  to  all  the 
demands  which  are  made  upon  them  by  a  justly 
discriminating  people.  But  I  tell  you  what  we 
want,  and  what  it  is  our  business  here  to  do.  We 
want  to  propose  some  plan  to  the  States  upon 
which  we  can  get  a  compromise,  and  can  get  at 
the  people.  We  want  to  speak  in  terms  of  expos- 
tulation to  the  North  and  to  the  South,  and  ask 
them  to  come  up  and  unite  upon  a  compromise, 
and  make  it  irrevocable  in  the  Constitution,  and 
settle  this  vexed  question  forever,  and  keep  it 
out  of  politics.  Can  this  be  done?  Yes,  Mr. 
President,  it  can  be  done.  I  have  not  des- 
paired. When  I  reflect  on  the  intelligence 
and  patriotism  of  the  American  people,  when 
I  look  over  this  wide  country  of  ours,  and 
see  the  trouble  that  is  now  existing  all  over  her 
broad  bosom,  and  the  depression  which  has  come 
over  all  departments  of  business;  when  I  see  the 
people  feel  this  thing;  when  I  see  how  in  the 
Northern  States  the  manufacturing  interest  is  suf- 
fering, and  the  laboring  classes  have  been  turned 
out  of  employment,  and  are  starving  for  bread 
to-day,  I  cannot  but  think  that,  when  we  can 
once  get  at  the  masses  of  the  people,  they  will 
agree  upon  a  compromise.  I  have  no  fears  about 
that  thing. 

There  never  was  a  question  in  which  I  took  a 
livelier  interest  than  the  question  of  the  troubles 
that  are  now  afflicting  my  country.  I  have  laid  upon 
my  pillow,  and  thought  seriously  upon  this  matter, 
and  turned  it  over  and  over.  Situated  as  we  are 
in  the  northern  part  of  the  State  of  Missouri, 
with  free  Territories  surrounding  us,  if  this 
State  should  secede,  it  would  bring  all  the  war, 
all  the  mobs  and  raids  that  I  have  heard  of  in 
Kansas  and  other  places,  upon  us.  We  expect 
we  should  be  robbed  of  our  property — our  ne- 
groes would  be  stolen  and  our  houses  burnt. 
Why,  sir,  if  such  a  crisis  as  that  should  come 
upon  us,  we  should  be  in  ruinous  condition. 
Fancy,  if  you  please,  the  condition  of  a  man 
who  when  he  lies  down  at  night  with  his.  family, 
does  not  know  whether  all  will  be  well  in  the 
morning — does  not  know  but  that  in  the  night 
fiends  in  human  form  may  visit  him  and 
burn  him  out  and  run  off  his  property.  I 
rather  think  if  that  were  to  come  to  pass  I  should 
secede  about  that  time.  [Laughter.]  But  that 
would  be  the  legitimate  consequence  of  our  dis- 
connection with  the  General  Government.  Well, 
because  we  talk  this  Avay  about  this  thing  some 
say  you  are  going  with  the  Northern  Confedera- 
cy. I  look  upon  that  as  an  unjust  imputation. 
When  I  say  I  am  for  remaining  in  the  Union,  it 
is  not  to  be  inferred  that  I  want  to  go  with  a 
Northern  Confederacy.  A  Northern  Confederacy 
and  the  Union  are  two  different  things.  If  there 
should  be  two  confederacies,  one  a  Northern  Con- 


federacy and  the  other  a  Southern,  in  that  event, 
being  a  Southern  man  and  a  slaveholder,  I  would 
be  in  favor  of  casting  our  destiny  with  the  South. 
But  if  this  Union  can  be  preserved,  I  want  to 
stay  in  it  by  all  means.  We  don't  know  what 
kind  of  government  we  are  going  to  have  down 
South.  It  may  be  a  military  monarchy  or  despo- 
tism ;  and  I  tell  you  if  we  do  ever  have  to  leave 
this  Union,  before  I  take  that  fearful  leap  I  must 
know  Avhat  kind  of  government  I  am  going  into. 

Now,  as  far  as  this  amendment  is  concerned,  I 
am  sorry  that  I  have  to  differ  from  my  friend 
from  Ray.  But,  then,  you  know  that  friends  will 
differ.  I  see  that  the  amendment  differs  from 
the  original  resolution,  yet  I  think  that  reso- 
lution expresses  all  that  we  desire  to  express  in 
regard  to  the  subject  of  coercion.  Then,  again, 
this  amendment,  it  seems  to  me,  rather  tends  to- 
wards an  insubordination  to  the  General  Gov- 
ernment, and  under  existing  circumstances  I 
will  not  suffer  myself  to  cast  a  vote  that  will  have  a 
tendency  in  that  direction.  My  friend  says  that 
if  we  do  not  vote  for  the  amendment,  we  shall 
have  to  fight  our  friends  down  South.  Well, 
now,  I  do  not  believe  that  the  passing  of  this 
amendment  will  prevent  that  thing,  if  it  depends 
upon  that  contingency.  I  believe  if  the  amend- 
ment is  the  only  thing  that  can  prevent  it,  there 
will  be  a  fight  anyhow.  I  am  inclined  to  think, 
Mr.  President,  that  if  the  General  Government 
does  call  on  us  to  go  down  there,  and  an  army  of 
Missourians  marches  into  any  one  of  the  States 
referred  to  by  the  gentleman,  by  the  time  they 
got  there  they  would  secede.  I  am  also  inclined 
to  think  that,  if  the  President  wants  to  whip 
those  fellows  down  there,  he  will  not  take  an 
army  from  the  slaveholding  Staes. 

We  want  the  proper  kind  of  spirit  among  the 
people.  We  want  the  return  of  that  spirit  which 
makes  one  American  citizen  look  upon  another 
as  a  brother,  no  matter  whence  he  comes.  A 
little  incident  occurs  to  my  mind  that  will  illus- 
trate my  idea.  A  friend  of  mine  went  to  Cali- 
fornia in  1849,  and  came  back  in  1852  or  '53.  In 
crossing  Central  America,  on  his  way  back,  he 
met  with  a  man  from  the  United  States,  who  was 
sick ;  he  had  been  unfortunate,  and  was  truly  an 
object  of  charity.  My  friend  said  that  he  had 
hardly  enough  money  to  bring  himself  home, 
but  he  said  he  was  an  American  citizen,  and  so 
he  divided  with  him.  It  was  enough  for  him  to 
know  that  he  was  an  American  citizen,  and  so  he 
divided  the  last  dollar  with  him  that  he  had. 
Now,  that  is  the  kind  of  spirit  which  we  ought 
to  have.  If  we  contribute  to  a  return  of  this 
spirit  among  the  people  of  the  North  and  South, 
if  we  can  get  them  reconciled,  if  we  can  get  them 
to  know  that  these  matters  of  difference  are  not 
matters  about  which  they  need  to  be  alarmed,  we 
shall  certainly  have  done  a  great  work. 


167 


Now,  it  is  truly  no  business  of  persons  in  the 
free  States  to  concern  themselves  about  the  sub- 
ject of  Blarery.  If  they  look  upon  it  as  a  great 
moral  evil,  or  a  crime,  yet  if  they  have  nothing 
to  do  with  it,  it  will  not  be  a  sin  to  them.  They 
ought  to  be  willing  to  act  upon  the  principle,  do 
unto  all  men  as  you  would  have  them  do  unto 
you.  Whenever  we,  as  American  citizens,  are 
willing  to  act  upon  that  principle,  we  shall  have 
peace  in  the  country,  and  be  in  a  condition  to 
compromise  our  difficulties. 

I  am  satisfied,  Mr.  President,  that  we  are  not  go- 
in^  out  of  the  Union.  I  am  satisfied,  further,  that 
we  are  going  to  adopt  this  majority  report,  with 
the  preamble,  and  send  it  out  to  our  brethren  in  the 
border  States  and  the  free  States  so  that  they  may 
understand  our  position,  and  come  forward  to 
aid  us  in  the  work  of  restoration  of  peace.    There 
is  no  use  talking  any  longer  about  who  is  at  fault 
and  who  is  not.    The  great  question  now  is,  we 
are  in  trouble  and  Ave  want  to  get  out  of  it.    We 
hare  to  compromise.     We  propose  as  a  basis 
the    Crittenden    amendment   to    the    Constitu- 
tion.     It    is   an    amendment   which    seems    to 
give   satisfaction  to   the    people    of  the  North 
and  to  the  South;   and  when  I  say  the  North, 
and  the  South,  I  mean  the  massess  of  the  people, 
the  yeomanry,  the  men  who  follow  the  plow,  the 
working  men,  the  bone  and  sinew  of  the  country. 
I  have    no    idea  of   satisfying  political  dema- 
gogues.   The  sooner  the  people  get  rid  of  them 
the  better.    But  I  tell  you  the  people  North  and 
South  will  vote  for  this  proposition.    It  is  true  if 
I  were  sent  to  a  National  Convention,  and  was  to 
vote  for  this  compromise,  if   I  could  not  get  a 
compromise    without  striking  out  that  part  of 
the  proposition  which  relates  to  the  future  acqui- 
sition of  territory,  I  would  be  willing  to  strike  it 
out.     I  believe  we  have  territory  enough,  and  I 
am  rather  of  opinion  that  if  that  compromise  is 
adopted,  it  will  operate  against  the  acquisition  of 
any  territory  in  the  future.    The  people  all  over 
the  country  are    familiar  with    the  Crittenden 
amendment,  and  I  have  no  doubt  a  majority  of 
them  will  vote  for  it.    I  have  talked  with  a  num- 
ber of  Republicans  who  say  that  they  would  vote 
for  it,  ami  the  other  evening  a  gentleman  from 
Northern  Illinois  told  me  that  three-fifths  of  the 
citizens  in    that  country    would    vote    for  this 
amendment.    I  tell  you  they  will  do  it  all  over 
the  country,  and  all  we  want  is  time  enough  to 
get  this  thing  before  the  people. 

What  a  glorious  object  it  will  be  for  us  to  do 
something  which  will  accelerate  the  time  when 
our  country  shall  again  be  blessed  with  peace  and 
prosperity — when  we  shall  all  again  be  united  in 
one  sisterhood  of  States,  and  a  compromise  shall 
have  been  effected,  which  will  set  the 
vexed  question  of  slavery  forever  at  rest!  What 
a  glorious  object  if,  by  agreeing  upon  such  a  com- 
promise as  this,  we  can  prevail  upon  the  South- 


ern States  to  join  hands  with  us  once  more  and 
come  back  into  the  Union!  We  will  welcome 
them  tack  as  brothers.  We  will  act  as  the  Father 
did  toward  the  Prodigal  Son.  We  will  go  out  to 
meet  them,  and  embrace  them  once  more — we 
will  kill  a  fatted  calf,  and  we  will  thankfully  pro- 
claim to  all  the  world :  These  States  were  lost  and 
we  found  them— they  were  dead,  and  they  are 
alive  again.  I  tell  you  such  a  shout  of  joy  never 
went  up  from  the  American  heart  as  would  go  up 
if  those  States  should  come  back.  We  would 
have  a  glorious  time. 


FOURTEENTH  DAY. 

St.  Louis,  March  16th,  1861. 
Met  at  10  o'clock,  a.  m. 
Mr.  President  in  the  chair. 
Prayer  by  the  Chaplain. 

On  motion,  the  reading  of  the  journal  was  dis- 
pensed with. 

Mr.  Lixton,  I  propose,  Mr.  President,  to  occu- 
py the  attention  of  the  Convention  for  about  five 
minutes.    I    object  to    the    amendment    of   the 
gentleman    from    Clay,    for    two    very     good 
reasons:    First,   that  it  is   supererogatory;  and 
second,  that  it  is  revolutionary.    It  is  supererog- 
atory, because  Lincoln  has  already  said  that  he 
does  not  intend  to  invade  any  State,  and  that  he 
does  not  intend  war.    What  is  the  use,  then,  of 
passing  a  resolution  that  he  shall  not  do  it.    I  say 
for  that  reason,  it  is  supererogatory.    But,  in  ad- 
dition to  this,  it  is  nullification,  it  is  revolu  ion- 
ary,  for  it  asserts  that  Missouri  will  not  do  what 
the  President,  by  constitutional  power,  can  re- 
quire   her   do.    If  it    be  constitutional  for  the 
President  to  call  upon  us  for  aid,  then  the  pas- 
sage of   the    resolve    declaring   that   the    State 
will   not   extend    such  aid,  would  be  a  wanton 
act  of  nullification.      So     far    as    principle    is 
concerned,  I  should  like  to  know  what  difference 
there  would  be  between  Missouri  saying  to  the 
General  Government,  we  will  resist  your  civil  de- 
mands, and  South  Carolina  declaring  that  the 
General  Government  shall  not  collect  the  imposts 
at  Charleston?    I  say,  then,  it  is   secession  in 
disguise— it  is  an  ultimatum  and  nullification. 
Although  I  do  not  believe  that  gentleman   in- 
tended it,  yet  it  is  so,  and,  to  use  a  sort  of  illus- 
tration, with  which  I  am  familiar,   and  which  I 
borrow  from  the  gentleman  from  Greene,  (Mr. 
Orr,)  it  does  not  matter  what  you  meant  when 
you  gave  strychnine,  if  you  gave  enough  to  kill, 
it  will  kill,  although  you  may  have  given  it  to 
cure. 

I  do  not  say,  Mr.  President,  that  I  do  not  wish 
this  amendment  to  be  sanctioned  by  the  Conven- 
tion, because  I  know  it  will  not  be.    I  do  say. 


168 


however,  that  I  hope  it  will  not  got  a  dozen  votes. 
I  know  1  have  taken  the  right  view  of  it,  and 
that  it  is  useless  and  wanton,  and  that  it  is  nul- 
lification and  secession.  So  much  for  the  amend- 
ment. 

I  wish  merely  to  say,  as  the  debate  has  taken 
a  wide  range,  a  few  words  upon  the  majority  re- 
port. I  approve  it.  As  others  have  said,  how- 
ever, it  is  not  exactly  such  an  one  as  I  would  have 
gotten  up,  although  it  is  a  much  better  one 
probably  than  I  could  have  devised  I  regard 
it  as  the  ablest  document  which  has  been 
elicited  by  the  present  troubles  of  the  country. 
For  myself,  I  could  take  less  than  it  asks,  and 
for  the  sake  of  the  Union,  I  would  ask  even  more 
than  it  asks. 

I  feel  very  differently,  now,  Mr.  President,  from 
what  I  did  three  weeks  ago,  when  I  first  met  you 
in  Jefferson  City.  I  felt  nervous,  then,  and  alarm- 
ed; but  I  do  not  feel  so  to-day— I  feel  that  it  is  all 
right  with  Missouri.  When  I  got  to  Jefferson 
City,  and  heard  nothing  but  the  Marsellaise  and 
Dixey,  in  place  of  the  Star  Spangled  Banner,  I 
felt  uneasy  enough.  And  when  I  heard  Governor 
Jackson  speak,  I  felt  badly — and  when  I  heard  the 
Commissioner  from  Georgia,  I  felt  uneasy. 

I  recollect,  with  my  colleague,  Mr.  Broadhead, 
hearing  Dixey  played  on  the  streets,  and  that 
we  stepped  up  to  the  leader  of  the  band  and  asked 
him  to  play  the  Star  Spangled  Banner.  He  said, (be- 
ing a  foreigner)  "Oh  me'fraid  to  play  that."  We 
assured  him  there  was  no  danger,  and  he  played 
one  stanza  of  the  Star  Spangled  Banner, 
but  immediately  went  off"  into  Dixey,  and  of 
course  we  went  off  in  disgust.  But  we  need  have 
no  fears  of  Missouri  now  or  hereafter. 

Mr.  President,  there  never  has  been  any  ade- 
quate cause  why  any  State  should  secede.  There 
never  has  been  even  a  respectable  pretext.  What 
have  any  of  them  suffered?  Have  armies 
been  quartered  amongst  them  in  time  of 
peace?  Have  hordes  of  officers  been  sent 
among  them  to  eat  out  their  sub- 
stance? Have  they  been  taxed  without  the 
liberty  of  being  represented  ?  Have  they  been 
denied  trial  by  jury?  Have  they  suffered  any  of 
those  wrongs  declared  by  Jefferson  in  the  Declar- 
ation of  Independence?  Not  at  all.  What  out- 
rage has  any  State  suffered  ?  I  answer  nothing 
that  would  in  any  degree  justify  secession.  They 
cannot  complain  that  slavery  will  be  interfered 
with  in  any  of  the  States,  for  the  Chicago  plat- 
form repudiates  that  doctrine — the  Committee  of 
Thirty -Three  has  set  that  matter  forever  at  rest. 
They  have  taken  it  out  of  the  poAver  of  Congress 
to  interfere  with  slavery  in  any  of  the  slave 
States.  Slavery  already  exists  in  all  the  Terri- 
tory that  slavery  claims.  The  only  Territory  that 
the  Crittenden  Compromise  claims — and  there  is 
no  Wilmot  Proviso  to  prevent  it  from  going  into 
the     territories    of  the    North.     But   the   ter- 


ritory hereafter  to  be  acquired  is  what  the 
Crittenden  Compromise  provides  for.  Mr. 
President,  I  think  it  a  wanton  wickedness  to  inter- 
fere and  endeavor  to  raise  a  quarrel  about  pro- 
perty which  wo  may  never  have.  I  say  it  is 
wickedness  to  endeavor  to  raise  a  quarrel  of 
that  sort.  And  I  say  more,  that  I  hope  w  e  may 
never  have  another  foot,  if  it  is  to  be  used  as  an 
element  of  strife. 

As  to  the  personal  liberty  bills,  it  is  very  well 
known  that  the  General  Government  pays  no  at- 
tention to  them;  that  it  executes  the  fugitive 
slave  law  in  spite  of  them.  I  have  read  that  one 
fugitive  slave  returned  in  one  instance  cost  $40,- 
000.  What  do  we  care  for  their  bills  if  the  Gen- 
eral Government  carries  its  laws  into  effect  in 
spite  of  those  bills?  Have  any  of  these  seceding 
States  ever  lost  a  slave  by  any  of  those  bills  ?  No, 
they  have  not.  But  Southern  orators  say  that,  like 
a  scorpion  girt  by  fire,  slavery  will  sting  itself  to 
death,  if  bounded.  It  is  obliged  to  be  bounded  by 
the  Crittenden  compromise,  and,  if  it  is  so 
dangerous,  it  will  have  to  sting  itself  to  death, 
even  if  the  Crittenden  Compromise  is  adopted. 
If  it  is  the  scorpion  it  appears  to  be,  we  had  bet- 
ter get  rid  of  it  in  Africa  than  extend  it  through 
our  Territories.  At  any  rate,  we  cannot  blame 
the  people  for  being  afraid  of  the  scorpion.  For 
myself,  I  want  nothing  better  than  the  Cor- 
win  Compromise  reported  by  the  Committee 
of  Thirty- three.  Those  who  will  not  be 
satisfied  with  that,  will  not  be  satisfied  with 
anything.  South  Carolina  will  not  be  satisfied 
with  anything,  and  in  this  connection  I  beg  leave 
to  read  an  extract  from  a  letter  from  a  gentleman 
who  is  well  known, was  a  Bell  Everett  man  recently 
and  a  good  Union  man  more  recently  and  always. 
He  says  "  the  amendment  of  the  Committee  of 
Thirty-three  which  has  been  submitted  by  them 
to  Congress  for  ratification,  will  put  that  question 
forever  at  rest,  and  all  reasonable  and  patriotic 
Southern  citizens  ought  to  be  satisfied.  But  I 
fear  that  it  will  not  be  enough  for  the  seceding 
States.  Their  whole  course  has  been  unpatriotic, 
selfish,  and  unmanly  to  other  States  and  especial- 
ly to  the  border  States.  There  is  no  patriotism  in 
the  secession  movement,  and  no  patriotic  State 
should  give  momentum  to  it  by  uniting  in  defense 
of  it,  and  in  my  estimation  Missouri  should 
be  the  last  of  the  border  States  to  do  so.  Laying 
aside  every  patriotic  consideration,  her  interest  is 
opposed  to  such  a  step — 1st.  her  expenses  must 
greatly  exceed  what  they  now  are;  and  2d,  her 
geographical  position  is  such  that  if  she  should 
go  into  a  Southern  Confederacy,  in  five  years  she 
would  be  a  free  State ;  and  that,  however  much 
you  might  wish  it  otherwise,  she  would  present 
the  strange  fact  of  being  nominally  a  slave  State 
without  having  any  slaves,  and  of  being  hitched 
on  to  an  aggressive  Southern  aristocracy  without 
any  sympathy  with  it." 


169 


A  Voice.    Who  is  that  letter  from. 
Mr.  Linton.    From  Judge  Booker,  of  Ky.    Mr. 
President,  it  is  sad  to  see  a  great  nation  destroyed. 
f>r  no  other  reason  than  a  mere  punctilio.    The 
South  desires  to  be  permitted  to  do  what  she 
would  not  do  if  permuted,  namely,  to  carry  sla- 
very into  Territories  unfitted  for  it.     What  a 
cause  to  fight  for  and  to  bleed  for— a  war  for  the 
extension  of  slavery  where  it  could  not  exist! 
Surely,  there  must  be  some  great  advantage  in 
secession,  when  the  people  rush  into  it  without  a 
cause.    No,  there  is  hot.    It  will  only  intensify 
the  evils  complained  of— it  will  make  a  Canada 
of  every  Northern  State,  and  the  North  will  be  a 
bourne  from  which  no  slave  traveller  will  return. 
Disunion  is  a  terrible  remedy  for  a  slight  and  trivial 
disease.  It  is  like  cutting  off  an  arm  to  cure  a  wart- 
it  is  likej  umping  out  of  the  frying  pan  into  the  fire. 
But,  sir,  Missouri  is  saved— I  am  satisfied  so  far.    I 
think  the  people  of  the  seceded  States  will  be 
brought  back,  and  that  the  names  of  their  be- 
tray ers  will  be  placed  in  the  same  catalogue  as 
those  of  Burr  and  Arnold.    I  do  not  like  to  use 
the  word  traitor,  especially  as  gentlemen  here  ob- 
ject to  it,  but,  sir,  I  must  say  that  many  of  these 
men  of  the  South  are  what  I  used  to  think  was 
meant  by  the  word  traitor;  and  if  I  do  not  apply 
it  to  them,  I  must  erase  it  from  my  vocabulary.  I 
am  certain  they  are  traitors  according  to  the  dic- 
tionary of  Henry  Clay,  and  according  to  Web- 
ster's dictionary.   The  country,  sir,  is  not  doomed 
to  disunion— its  flag  is  not  to  be  torn  to  tatters- 
it  will  yet  wave  over  every  sea  and  be  recognized 
in  every  land— its  constellation  is  better  known 
than  the  stars  of  heaven,  for  it  is  familiar  to  mil- 
lions on  whom  the  stars    of  the  North  never 
shone— to  millions  who  never  beheld  the  Southern 
cross.    Glorious  flag?    next  to  the  emblem  ot 
man's  salvation,  I  revere  the  glorious  Union! 
next  to  the  church  of  the  Loving  God— thou  hast 
my  homage. 

Mr.  Sayre.  I  would  like  to  say  a  few  words 
on  the  amendment  offered  by  the  gentleman  from 
Clay.  I  think  there  should  be  an  expression  of 
opinion  of  the  people  of  Missouri  against  the  use 
of  force  while  we  are  endeavoring  to  negotiate 
for  such  guarantees  as  the  people  of  the  threatened 
S;ates  think  their  rights  demand;  but  I  am  not 
satisfied  with  the  manner  in  which  the  expression 
of  that  opinion  is  sought  to  be  given  by  this 
amendment.  It  seems  to  me  that  it  is  not  the 
part  of  statesmen  to  say  that  we  will  do  one  thing, 
or  that  we  will  not  do  another,  binding  us  for  a  fu- 
ture, when  circumstances  maybe  very  different. 

The  view  of  the  people  of  Virginia,  as  given  by  the 
majority  report  of  their  Convention,  is  more  cor- 
rect than  the  one  set  forth  in  this  amendment.— 
They  simply  declare  that  the  use  of  force,  or  the 
commencement  of  hostilities  by  either  party  will 
be  regarded  as  unfriendly  and  offensive.  That 
would  be  sufficient  for  our  purpose,  and  carry  all 


the  weight  which  the  position  would  seem  to  re- 
quire at  our  hands.  More  than  this,  I  object  to 
the  position  in  which  that  amendment  places  us, 
because  it  is  said  there  that  Ave  will  not  give  as- 
sistance to  the  one  party  or  to  the  other,  under 
any  circumstances,  reserving  to  ourselves  a  neu- 
tral position,  where  we  can  stand  pusillanimously 
by,  in  a  place  of  safety,  while  our  brethren  are 
fighting  this  great  quarrel.  Where  we  shall  be 
benefitted  by  their  sufferings;  where  I  can  sell  my 
mules,  and  the  gentleman  his  hemp,  for  all  the 
higher  prices  because  of  their  necessities.  As 
the  Jackall  in  the  fable,  when  the  Lion  and  the 
Tiger  are  fighting,  and  they  are  exhausted, 
can  pick  their  bones. 

What  would  that  "brave  old  man  eloquent,"  the 
near  connection  of  the  gentlemen  to  whom  the 
eyes  and  hearts  of  every  patriot  in  this  broad 
land  are  now  turned  with  affectionate  admiration, 
say  of  this  position  were  it  suggested  to  him  for 
his  loved  Kentucky  or  for  Missouri  scarce  less 
dear.  I  think  it  would  be  sufficient  to  say  that 
any  act  of  hostility  on  either  side,  while  we  are  in 
negotiation,  would  be  regarded  as  unfziendly  and 
offensive. 

Gentlemen  have  undertaken   to   argue   upon 
this  amendment  the  whole  questions  which  have 
divided  the  North  and  the  South.    It  is  a  proper 
occasion,  therefore,  and  a  duty  imposed  upon  me, 
to  bear  my  testimony  as  to  what  the  voice  of 
the  people  with  whom  I  am  acquainted  declares 
upon  this  subject.  With  that  object  I  wish  to  make 
a  comment  or  two  upon  the  positions  which  have 
been  taken  here,  in  regard    to    the    action    we 
should  take.      I  was  sent  here  to  attempt  to  pro- 
vide guarantees  for  our  rights — rights  that  have 
not  only  been  invaded  and  trespassed  upon,  but 
much  more ;  rights  that  have  been  and  are  threat- 
ened to  a  more  serious  extent.    What  we    have 
suffered,  and  now,  in  point  of  fact,  are  suffering, 
is  set  forth  clearly  and  honestly,  so  far  as  it  goes, 
in  the  majority  report.    But  there  is  more  than 
this— there  are  the  threats  of  future  aggressions, 
and  so  far  as  I  am  concerned,  and  so  far  as  the 
great  mass  of  the  people  of   the  South  are  con- 
cerned, the  cause  of  the  action  they  have  taken, 
is  nothing  more  nor  less  than  the  apprehension  of 
these  future  aggressions.    I  know  it  is  thought  to 
bean  imaginary  apprehension,  but  I  stand  here  to 
declare,  in  my  place  that  these  apprehensions  are 
based  upon  facts,  real,  solid,  and  dangerous.— 
Why !  how  could  it  be  otherwise  ?    Here  are  mil- 
lions of  people  of  our  own  race,  and  no  one  will 
say  that  the  great  mass  of  them  are  cowards  or 
fools,  who,  because  of  this  apprehension,   have 
sacrificed  the  ties  which  bind  them  to  their  coun- 
try.   They  are  patriots,  and  they  have  shown 
their  love  for  their  country  to  be  as  sincere  and  de- 
voted as  the  love  of  country  ever  shown  by  any 
other  people.    They  have  parted  with  all  the  glo- 
rious memories  of  the  past,  and  with  all  the  bright 


170 


hopes  of  the  future,  as  connected  with  our  Gov- 
ernment. They  have  imposed  upon  themselves 
enormous  burthens,  they  have  run  the  risk  of  in- 
dividnal  ruin,  of  having  their  rights  wrested  from 
them,  and  their  property,  by  an  aggrarian  distri- 
bution, thrown  into  new  hands.  They  have  been, 
and  they  are  the  most  conservative  of  all  peo- 
ple upon  this  whole  globe,  yet  they  have  bro- 
ken up  their  government  and  incurred  these 
great  dangers.  Would  they  have  done  this 
without  a  cause?  Never.  What  then  was  the 
cause?  We  have  seen,  that  for  nearly  thirty 
years  past,  the  minds  of  the  Northern  peo- 
ple have  been  poisoned,  and  their  consciences 
preverted,  by  being  taught,  from  the  school  room 
to  the  desk  of  the  minister,  in  the  forum,  on  the 
bench,  in  the  Court  House,  in  the  Lyceum,  in  the 
literature  of.  the  country,  in  the  nursery,  and  even 
in  the  prayers  of  the  family  altar,  that  slavery 
was  a  sin,  and  that  it  was  incumbent  on  them  to 
wage  war  upon  it.  The  people  of  the  south  have 
repeatedly,  and  in  all  possible  ways,  declared  to 
the  people  of  the  north,  that  the  opinions  you  are 
inculcating,  are  dangerous  to  our  peace  and  de- 
structive of  the  security  of  the  Government,  and 
if  persisted  in,  must  necessarily  result  in  separa- 
tion. They  were  answered  with  fresh  aggressions 
and  additional  insults.  The  contest  has  continued 
from  the  time  of  the  anti- slavery  societies  of 
1815  and  1825,  to  the  more  active  abolition  socie- 
ties of  1830  and  1835,  until  it  at  last  resulted  in 
the  great  Republican  party,  and  the  nomination 
of  a  candidate  in  the  Presidential  canvass  in 
which  Buchanan  was  elected,  upon  a  platform 
containing  a  set  of  principles,  which  were  not  the 
least  changed  in  substance  and  effect  in  the  plat- 
form adopted  at  Chicago.  Thus  these  views  have 
been  continually  on  the  increase,  and  the  party 
has  grown  in  power  in  spite  of  the  warnings  of  the 
South,  until  in  consequence  of  these  views  hostile 
to  the  institutions  with  which  their  existence  is 
entwined,  the  South  has  been  compelled  to  sepa- 
rate. Does  any  one  deny  the  existence  of  such 
a  party,  whose  sole  idea  is  hostility  to  slavery? 
It  cannot  be  denied.  For  what  other  purpose  does 
the  party  exist  ?  and  what  is  the  ultimate  purpose 
of  this  great  party?  They  do  not  expect  to  ac- 
complish it  on  the  instant,  but  by  a  course  of 
legislation,  perhaps  judicial  legislation,  which 
shall  place  the  institution  of  slavery  grad- 
ually and  inevitably  in  their  power,  until  at 
last  it  shall  be  done  away  with.  They  declare 
that  the  Northern  mind  will  never  rest  satisfied 
until  slavery  is  put  in  the  course  of  ultimate  ex- 
tinction. No  man  can  deny  that  this  is  their 
main  object;  that  while  they  may  be  compelled 
to  bear  with  it  temporarily  in  the  States  where  it 
exists,  yet  their  policy  is  to  effect  the  obliteration 
of  the  evil.  We  have  heard  it  said  from  this 
stand  that  the  people  of  the  South  do  not  suffer, 
that  they  have  no  cause  to  complain,  but  that 


the  people  of  the  Border  States  suffer;  that  our 
slaves  are  taken  by  mobs,  and  carried  away; 
that  the  whole  South  has  not  suffered  one  hun- 
dredth part  as  much  as  the  State  of  Missouri.— 
I  do  not  wish  to  contradict  it.  But  what  will  be 
the  case  if  this  great  party  succeeds  and  abol- 
ishes the  system  of  slavery  ?  What  will  be  the 
situation  of  our  brethren  in  the  South  where  the 
slaves  outnumber  the  whites  as  four  to  three? 
They  are  more  interested  than  we  are,  are  neces- 
sarily more  sensitive,  and  forsee  the  approaching 
evils  from  a  greater  distance.  What  is  to  become 
of  them  when  the  tie  which  binds  the  slave  to  the 
master  is  unloosed  and  the  system  is  abolished? 
Do  you  not  know  Mr,  President,  that  their  hill- 
sides are  exhausted?  that  the  rice  fields,  the  sea  is- 
lands, and  the  cotton  fields,  where  the  strangers' 
fever  prevails,  cannot  be  cultivated  by  the  white 
man  ?  When  slavery  is  abolished  what  is  to  be 
their  situation?  The  horrors  of  St.  Domingo  are 
but  peace  in  comparison  to  what  must  befal  that 
afflicted  country,  the  moment  that  the  tie  which 
binds  the  slave  to  the  master  is  severed.  Better 
far  that  the  waters  of  the  Atlantic,  and  of  the 
Gulf  envelop  them  in  a  common  ruin.  They 
have  constantly  warned  the  Northern  people  to 
cease  this  war  upon  them.  The  Northern  people 
have  been  regai-dless  of  this  warning.  The  peo- 
ple of  the  South  now  see  that  the  North  is  in  a 
condition  to  carry  its  threats  into  execution,  and 
that,  though  the  object  may  not  be  accomplish- 
ed in  their  day,  it  may  be  in  the  day  of  their  chil- 
dren and  grandchildren,  who  may  be  compelled 
to  live  perhaps  on  an  equality  with  the  negroes, 
perhaps  obey  them  as  masters.  Is  it  wonderful 
that  these  people  resist  ?  Is  it  to  be  expected  that 
they  shall  be  less  sensitive  on  their  childrens'  ac- 
count than  on  their  own?  Why  will  not  gentle- 
men look  these  facts  in  the  face,  as  the  real  cause 
Avhich  has  compelled  the  Southern  people  to  take 
their  decided  step.  I  have  waited  in  vain  for 
other  gentlemen,  who  understand  these  things 
better  than  I  do,  to  give  voice  as  to  the  real  causes 
which  have  led  to  these  troubles.  It  is  because 
of  real  and  well  grounded  apprehensions  of  terrible 
and  intolerable  dangers.  It  would  not  be  difficult 
to  give  the  doctrines  and  platforms  of  the  party 
which  has  been  inculcating  this  anti-slavery  idea 
for  more  than  a  generation,  but  it  is  sufficient  to 
take  up  the  last — that  formed  at  Chicago.  The 
more  especially,  as  objection  has  been  made  to 
their  being  judged  except  by  their  platform. — 
What  is  the  testimony  of  this  platform  as  to  the 
intentions  of  this  party?  They  have  clothed 
their  nefarious  purposes,  and  on  that  account  all 
the  more  offensively  to  us,  in  a  pretended  devotion 
to  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  and  the  Con- 
stitution of  their  country.  But  the  exposition  of 
their  meaning,  and  construction  of  the  Declara-  ' 
tion  of  Independence  and  of  the  Constitution  is 
well  known  over  the  whole  land.    We  know  how 


171 


these  planks  of  the  Chicago  platform  were  offer- 
ed one  day  in  the  Wigwam  to  propitiate  Mr  Gid- 
dings  and  the  radical  abolitionists,  and  after  de- 
bate and  full  consideration,  they  were  voted  down. 
We  know  how  then  Mr.   Giddings  left,  scraping 
the  dust  from  his  feet.    How  then  the  action  of 
the  Wigwam  wa*  reconsidered  and  those  planks 
adopted,  and  Mr.  Giddings    then  was  willing  to 
occupy  a  position  among  them.    Their  construc- 
tion of  those  planks  in  the  platform  are  pregnant 
with  the  utmost  significance.    They  place  partic- 
ular stress  upon  the   clause  which  declares  that 
all  men  are  created  equal.    Was  it  not  natural 
that  the  South  should  be  alive  to  the  danger,when 
this  great  party,numbering  over  eighteen  hundred 
and  sixty  thousand  voters,  elected  their  President 
to  carry  into  effect  this  great  truth.    They  ex- 
pressed what  was  meant,  and  gave  a  significant 
meaning  to  it,— that  the  white  man  and  the  black 
man  had  equal  rights !    Sir,  a  President  has  been 
elected  upon  that  platform,who,  though  he  avowed 
in  some  of  his  speeches  in  the  Senatorial  canvass 
with  Mr.   Douglas,  that  he  was  not  in    favor  of 
giving  the  right  of  suffrage  to  the    negro  in  Illi- 
nois, that  he  was  not  in  favor  of  repealing  the  so 
called  Black  laws  there,  yet  afterwards  repeatedly 
scouted  the  distinction  of  colors  and  races  as  to 
the  equality  of  rights.    He  has  said  in  his  trium- 
phal passage    from  his  home  to  the  Presidency, 
that  he  would  yield  no  inch  of  his  platform,  and 
at  Independence  Hall,  on  the  very  birth-day  of  the 
father  of  his  country,  that  he  would  like  to  save 
his  country,  if  he  could  do  so  consistently,  with 
this  principle.    But  if  he  could  not  do  so  it  would 
be  awful.    Rather  than  yield  it,  he  was  about  to 
say,  he  had  rather  be  assassinated  on  the  spot, 
giving  full  assurance  that  he  intends  to  press  the 
principle  till  he  sees  the  burthen   lifted  from  the 
shoulders  of  all  men       The  men  whom    he  has 
selected   for  hi3    Cabinet,  share  his    sentiments. 
If  there  is  one  man  whom  we  dread  more  than 
any  other,  it  is  Chase  of  Ohio.    How  long  is  it 
since  he  declared  his  approbation  of  the  practice 
of  amalgamation.    Mr.  Seward  is  his  principal 
adviser.    He  did  more,  perhaps,  for  his  election 
than  any  other  man,  and  again  and  again  has  ex- 
pressed the  same  sentiments.    It  is^these  things 
that  have  compelled  the  South  to  take  their  pres- 
ent course.    I  was  pleased  with  the  address  of 
the  gentleman  from  St.  Louis,  (Mr.  Gantt)  yes- 
terday, in  which  he  held  up  to  merited  scorn  and 
contempt,  the  action  of  the  Northern  Legislatures, 
which,   adding  tho  sin  of  hypocrisy  to  the  guilt 
of  violating  the  Constitution  of  their    country, 
have  attempted  to  obstruct  the  rendition  of  fugi- 
tive slaves.    But  I  regretted  to  hear  him  place  as 
a  full  set  off,  against  their  continued  persistent  and 
systematic  violations  of  Southern  rights,  the  in- 
hospitable treatment,  as  he  called  it,  of  Mr.  Sam'l 
Hoar  and    his    daughter,    in   1835,    in    South 
Carolina.    Mr.    Hoar    went    there  as  an  emis- 


sary of  the  anti- Slavery  Societies  of  the 
North,  clothed  with  authority  from  Massachu- 
setts, to  contend  for  and  secure  negroes'  rights  in 
South  Carolina.  It  was  a  regular  part  of  the 
warfare  on  the  South  to  do  away  with  slavery. 
It  was  one  step  in  the  progress  to  their  one  great 
end.  They  talk  about  people  of  the  South  being 
upon  a  volcano— in  a  house  filled  with  combusti- 
bles. They  abound  with  all  such  figures  of  speech, 
which  are  calculated  to  strike  terror  into  the 
hearts  of  those  who  choose  to  listen  to  such  non- 
sense. If  these  things  were  so,  Judge  Hoar  went 
there  with  a  lighted  flambeau  in  his  hand,  to  set 
fire  to  the  institutions  of  the  South— not  in  a 
manly  manner,  by  himself,  but  meanly  sheltered 
by  the  presence  of  his  daughter,  whom  he  brought 
to  protect  him  from  the  indignation  of  an  out- 
raged people.  For  their  treatment  of  him 
they  cannot  be  accused  of  a  want  of  chivalrous 
feeling.  They  desired  him  to  return  home  with 
his  daughter.  They  were  not  willing  that  she 
should  shield  him  while  making  war  upon 
them.  I  do  not  think  the  sending  home 
of  Judge  Hoar  and  his  daughter  from 
South  Carolina  is  a  full  answer  and  "coun- 
terpoise" to  the  encroachments  of  the  North. 
Their  action  was  in  self-defence,  and  as  it  turned 
out  afterwards,  in  accordance  with  the  law. 
There  has  since  been  a  decision  made  upon  the 
subject  of  the  right  of  the  blackman  to  citizen- 
ship. This  decision  denies  the  right.  More  than 
this,  the  South  have  considered,  and  still  con- 
sider it,  not  only  an  outrage  but  an  insult  to 
question  their  title  to  their  slaves. 

In  another  part  of  the  constitution,  freedom  of 
the  press  and  freedom  of  speech  are  provided  for. 
It  is  known  that  the  North  construe  that  to  mean 
that  they  have  the  right  to  send  emissaries  and 
inflammatory  handbills  to  the  south  to  incite  the 
slaves  to  insurrection. 

In  another  part  of  the  Constitution,  Congress 
has  power  to  regulate  commerce.  Under  this 
power,  the  North  claim  the  power  to  interdict  the 
inter-state  slave  trade,  to  prevent  a  citizen  of 
of  Kentucky  from  moving  to  Missouri  with  his 
servants. 

In  another  part  of  the  Constitution,  the  citizens 
of  one  State  are  guarantied  the  privileges  and 
immunities  of  citizens  of  the  several  States.  Un- 
der this  power,  the  North  claims  that  a  free  ne- 
gro of  New  York  or  Massachusetts,  has  a  right 
to  move  to  Missouri,  and  enjoy  the  privileges  of 
citizenship. 

In  another  part  of  the  Constitution  is  secured 
to  Congress  the  power  to  pass  all  needful  rules 
and  regulations  respecting  the  territories  and 
other  property  of  the  United  States.  Under  this 
power  they  claim  the  authority  to  abolish  slavery 
in  the  territories,  in  the  forts,  dock-yards,  and 
in  other  posts  of  the  United  States,  as  well  as  in 
the  District  of  Columbia  ;  that  thus,  where  our 


172 


common  government  has  jurisdiction,  shall  be 
found  an  asylum  for  runaway  slaves.  It  is  well 
known,  that  they  claim  under  the  power  over 
the  territories  and  other  property,  that  they  have 
the  right  to  prohibit  slavery ;  and  under  the  Fre- 
mont platform  they  declare  it  their  duty  to  do  it 
where  they  had  the  power.  Though  this  is  left 
out,  in  plain  words  the  substance  is  retained  in  a 
more  offensive  shape  in  the  Chicago  platform. 
By  some  strange  delusion  they  have  come  to  the 
conclusion,  that  they  are  as  responsible  as  the 
South  is  for  slavery  in  the  South.  We  claim  that 
we  have  under  our  Constitution,  the  same  right 
to  be  protected  in  our  property,  that  they  have  in 
theirs.  For  our  allegiance,  we  are  entitled  to 
protection  ;  that  allegiance  and  protection  are 
correlative;  They  limit  and  deny  our  right  to 
protection  to  our  slave  property,  and  declare  that 
all  our  remedies  for  securing  and  re-taking  it, 
shall  be  taken  away  from  us  whenever  they  have 
the  power  ;  that  the  laws  of  God  may  be  vindi- 
cated in  accordance  with  their  perverted  views 
of  the  lessons  of  history,  and  the  laws  of  pro- 
gress and  civilization.  All  their  acts  declare  that 
slavery  is  of  purely  local  and  not  of  general 
character  as  to  its  remedies ;  and  that  we  have  a 
right  to  have  it  protected  only  in  the  places 
where  our  State  laws  have  juiisdiction;  and  if 
our  slaves  are  found  in  the  forts,  arsenals,  or  oth- 
er property  of  the  government,  they  can  and 
should  withhold  from  us  our  right  to  recover 
them.  They  declared  also,  four  years  ago,  that  it 
was  their  right  and  duty  to  wield  the  policy  and 
patronage  of  the  government  in  hostility  to  our 
institutions.  That  particular  language  was  left 
out  of  the  Chicago  platform ;  not  because  of  any 
change  of  views,  but  because  their  purpose  was 
sufficiently  palpable  without  it. 

These,  then,  are  the  purposes  of  the  Republi- 
can party  of  the  North,  and  by  putting  dema- 
gogue judges  upon  the  bench  of  the  Supreme 
Court,  they  can  easily,  and  in  a  short  time,  be 
carried  into  full  effect,  by  judicial  legislation, 
without  going  to  Congress  for  new  enactments. 
Seven  States  believing  thus  for  most  abundant 
reasons,  that  these  are  the  intentions  of  the 
Northern  people,  and  perceiving  that  they  have 
sufficient  power  to  execute  them,  have  separated 
themselves  for  their  protection.  It  is  not  ne- 
cessary to  say  that  slavery  can  not  contin- 
ue at  all  under  these  perversions  of  the  Con- 
stitution; nor  is  it  necessary  to  say  that  the  en- 
tire South  must  be  rendered  desolate  if  slavery 
is  abolished.  What,  then,  is  our  duty?  We 
complain  of  the  South  because  they  have  taken 
their  mode  of  redress  without  consulting  us.  They 
have  taken,  to  say  the  least  of  it,  a  rash  remedy. 
They  have  deserted  us  when^we  were  sharing 
their  dangers,  and  worse  than  all,  have  left  us 
behind  with  diminished  numbers  and  strength  to 
fight  then-  battles  for  them.    It  is  natural  that 


they  should  be   more  sensitive  to  these  great 
evils  than  we  are.   It  is  a  matter  of  life  and  death 
with  them.    Our  slaves  may  be  taken  away  from 
us,  but  still,  Missouri,  degraded  and  dishonored, 
perhaps,  can  exist.    But  with  them  it  is  a  ques- 
tion of  life  or  annihilation.      From  the  speeches 
of  gentlemen,  it  might  be  supposed  that  our 
troubles  and  complaints  were  for  the  few  slaves 
stolen  from  us;  but  that  is  nothing  in  compari- 
son.   Our  great  trouble  is  the   war  that  is  made 
on  us  by  the  North,  without  cause.    They  make 
this  war  upon  us,  though  they  continue  to  use 
rice,  cotton,   sugar,  tobacco  and  hemp ;  to  buy 
and  sell,  and  trade,  and  grow  rich  upon  the  pro- 
ducts of  slave  labor.    We  sympathise  with  our 
Southern  brethren;  but    we    regret    that  they 
should  have  attempted  to  take  their  remedy  into 
their  own  hands,  without  consulting  us.    They 
should  not  have  done  it.    We  should  not,  and  we 
cannot  now  go  with  them.    I  think  the  course 
which  they  should   have  taken,  is  the  course 
proper  for  us  to  take  now.    We  should  confer 
with  the  remaining  slave  States  in  a  Convention, 
and  set  forth  in  clear,  and  firm,  and  moderate 
terms,  our  claims  for  guarantees  by  amendments 
to  the  Constitution,  and  should  urge  the  North 
and  the  South  to  assist  in  having  them  adopted. 
When  the  Committee  on  Federal  Relations  made 
their  first  report,  I  was  not  satisfied  with  it;  but 
now,  since    they  have  made  their  amended  or 
supplemental  report,  recommending  the  Conven- 
tion of  the  remaining  slave  States  for  conference 
and  consultation,  I  can  cheerfully  give  it  my 
support,  as  a  mode  well  calculated  to  secure  the 
guarantees  we  need.    By  this  Convention,  and  a 
subsequent  Convention  of  all  the   States,  I  in- 
dulge now  strong  hopes  of  working  out  a  remedy 
for  our  troubles. 

While  we  express  our  disapproval  of  the  course 
taken  by  our  Southern  sister  States,  we  should 
remember,  and  recognise,  and  acknowledge,  that 
they  were  acting  in  self-defence,  with  a  degree  of 
unanimity  seldom  if  ever  before  witnessed;  and 
that  they  judged  of  the  mode  and  measure  of 
their  redress.  They  have  considered  the  question, 
and  unquestionably  in  all  sincerity  and  honesty, 
decided  that  it  was  necessary,  in  order  to  arouse 
their  own  people,  and  perhaps  the  people  of  other 
States  to  a  sense]of  their  danger,  to  take  the  harsh 
measures  which  they  adopted,  to  obtain  redress 
for  their  and  our  wrongs.  No  matter  what  some 
of  them  may  say;  I  can  not  believe  that  if  suffi- 
cient and  proper  guarantees  are  accorded,  they 
would  hesitate  long  before  returning  to  us;  un- 
til the  redress  which  they  and  we  desire  is  ob- 
tained, it  does  not  become  us  to  take  any  steps 
for  their  destruction.  I  wish  Missouri  to  say  that 
any  attempt  by  the  General  Government  to  bring 
them  back  by  the  use  of  force,  will  be  regarded 
as  unfriendly  and  offensive. 


173 


I  have  felt  that  the  duty  which  I  owe  to  my 
constituents,  required  me  to  assert,  defend  and 
endeavor  to  secure  their  rights  upon  this  floor. 
When  I  see  men  rising  in  this  Convention,  one 
after  another,  pretending  to  be  on  our  side,  pre- 
tending to  be  part  of  us,  and  yet  confessing  judg- 
ment against  us,  arguing  and  defending  the  po- 
sitions of  those  who  have  made  these  aggres- 
sions, and  brought  these  great  troubles  upon 
us ;  pretending  great  sympathy  for  us  and  then 
when  off  of  our  guard,  having  secured  our  con- 
fidence, plunging  their  dagger  to  our  hearts,  tell- 
ing us  that  we  are  the  party  that  is  in  the  wrong; 
I  say,  when  I  see  this,  I  can  not  but  feel  that  such 
sentiments  will  not  be  endorsed  by  the  people  of 
Missouri. 

Mr.  President,  I  must  tell  gentlemen  that  Mis- 
souri will  not  reserve  her  great  honors  and  her 
high  places,  for  those  who  hang  upon  her  gar- 
ments; who  weight  her  down  and  paralyze  her 
arms,  while  she  is  struggling  for  her  rights  with 
her  enemies. 

Our  people  are  not  conscious  of  doing  the 
North  any  injustice,  but  they  are  conscious  of 
having  received  injustice  at  their  hands.  We 
desire  nothing  at  their  hands  but  to  be  let  alone. 
If,  as  has  been  so  frequently  the  case,  our  rights 
are  invaded,  and  we  stand  in  defense  of  them, 
shall  we  be  told  that  we  are  committing  dreadful 
wrongs  upon  the  North!  We  have  claims  upon 
them  for  redress.  I  think  I  have  shown  the 
mode  of  securing  it.  What  is  to  stand  in  the 
way  of  our  success  ?  Who  and  what  are  to  be 
injured  by  an  adjustment  and  settlement  of  our 
troubles  ?  It  is  possible  that  some  portion  of  the 
British  empire  that  has  been  our  enemy  and  our 
rival  for  nearly  an  hundred  years,  actuated  by 
spite,  at  previous  unsuccessful  attempts  to  injure 
and  destroy  us,  and  envy  at  our  increasing  pros- 
perity, not  unmixed  with  apprehensions  of  our 
growing  power,  may  desire  to  see  their  rival 
crushed;  that  Britannia  may  still  continue  to 
rule  the  seas.  They  may  be  benefited  by  our  con- 
tinued alienations,  and  by  their  being  made  per- 
petual. 

It  is  possible  that  some  misguided  fanatics  of 
the  North,  some  corrupt  demagogues,  thirsting 
for  the  enjoyment  of  power,  covetous  of  the  fruit 
of  their  triumph,  and  having  the  temporary 
control  of  the  Republican  party,  may  be  bene- 
fited by  our  ^roubles.  It  is  possible  that  some 
men  across  the  Atlantic,  who  wish  our  destruc- 
tion, having  never  forgiven  us  for  what  our  fath- 
ers did  in  the  revolt  of  the  colonies,  nearly  ninety 
years  ago,  (similar  so  far  to  what  the  South  are 
doing  at  the  present  day  in  that  both  were  re- 
sisting oppressive  aggressions)— and  that  these 
others  on  this  side  the  Atlantic,  who  wish 
to  clutch  the  spoils  of  office,  will  regret  our  re- 
conciliation and  may  try  to  prevent  it. 


It  is  possible  that  some  bold,  bad  men,  who 
speak  with  a  cool  relish  and  satisfaction,  like  the 
wicked  Trumbull  of  shelling  the  city  of  Charles- 
ton; or  like  the  brutal  Wade,  when  with  pro- 
fane curses  he  thundered  of  Louisiana,  "that 
she  came  to  us  a  desert  and  as  a  desert  she 
should  go  from  us"— might  not  rejoice  to  see  this 
Union  again  prosperous  and  happy.  But  the 
voice  of  the  American  people  will,  I  believe, 
eventually  sweep  from  the  face  of  the  earth,  all 
such  men,  and  all  who  defend  them. 

I  will  now  offer  my  substitute. 

The  amendment  was  then  read  as  follows : 

Amend  by  adding,  "that  the  commencement  of 
hostilities  by  either  must  necessarily  be  regarded 
by  Missouri  as  unfriendly  and  offensive/' 

Mr.  Wright.  Is  that  to  be  added  to  the  orig- 
inal resolution? 

The  Chair.  It  is  an  amendment  to  the  fifth 
resolution,  instead  of  the  amendment  offered  by 
the  gentleman  from  Clay. 

Mr.  Woodson.  Mr.  President— Gentlemen 
of  the  Convention :  I  did  not  expect,  when  I 
came  here,  to  open  my  mouth  in  the  advocacy  of 
any  measure  or  proposition  that  might  be  pre- 
sented for  consideration. 

Being  unused  to  debate  or  public  speaking,  I 
determined  within  myself  that  I  would  not,  at 
my  advanced  period  of  life,  attempt,  to  enlighten 
this  grave  and  intelligent  assemblage  of  men, 
clothed  with  the  most  important  trusts  ever  con- 
fided to  the  consideration  of  any  deliberative 
body,  convened  within  the  borders  ©f  this  now 
great  commonwealth  of  the  State  of  Missouri. 

But  whilst  determining  on  such  line  of  con- 
duct, I  resolved  not  to  be  impassive;  but  on  the 
contrary,  to  note  carefully  the  main  suggestions 
made  by  members  of  the  Convention;  weigh 
well  the  arguments  produced,  in  order  that  I 
might  be  enabled  to  A-ote  on  each  and  every  pro- 
position debated,  with  an  eye  single  to  the  best 
interests  of  my  State  and  my  whole  country ; 
adopting  as  my  best  policy  the  sage  advice 
which  a  certain  father  gave  to  his  son,  who  was 
considered  not  remarkable  for  acuteness  of  in- 
tellect, when  invited  to  a  social  repast,  to  "keep 
his  mouth  shut,  and  probably  no  one  would 
find  out  he  was  a  fool."  (I  hope  no  member  of  the 
Convention  will  take  exceptions  to  this  remark  ; 
I  do  not  intend  it  for  anyone  but  myself  and 
use  it  in  no  offensive  sense. )  But  when  I  remem- 
ber the  pledges  I  made  to  my  constituency  of  the 
third  Senatorial  District,  as  true  Union  men  as 
any  to  be  found  in  the  State,  whom  I  have  the 
honor,  in  part,  to  represent  on  this  momentous 
occasion,  viz :  I  would  not  only  not  sign  any 
ordinance  dissolving  the  relations  existing  be- 
tween this  State  and  the  Federal  Government 
now,  but  use  my  best  endeavors  to  restore  the 
Government  to  what  it  was,  prevent  the  further 
disintegration  of  these  States ;  and  preserve  the 


174 


Union.,  made  by  our  fathers  at  such  a  sacrifice 
of  toil,  of  hardship,  of  blood,  of  life,  and  to  hand 
it  down  to  posterity  as  we  received  it :  I  feel  im- 
pelled to  depart  from  my  original  purpose,  and 
at  the  risk  of  incurring  the  penalty  inflicted  on 
the  hopeful  son,  I  ask  the  indulgence  of  this 
Convention  while  I  make  a  few  suggestions,  from 
the  best  lights  I  have,  in  view  of  my  responsi- 
bility to  the  country,  and  the  redemption  of  the 
pledges  made  to  my  district. 

Gentlemen,  I  have  listened  attentively  to  the 
remarks  of  every  speaker  who  has  preceded  me 
during  our  deliberations ;  and  I  now  declare  that 
I  feel  much  gratified  in  being  able  to  say  that  I 
do  not  believe  there  is  a  disunionist,  x>er  se, 
amongst  the  ninety-nine  delegates  composing 
this  Convention.  I  feel  well  assured,  therefore, 
that  our  glorious  Union  is  safe,  so  far  at  least,  as 
the  purposes  and  action  of  this  Convention  can 
conduce  to  its  restoration  and  preservation.  The 
love  of  the  Union  with  our  pcople^has  grown  in- 
to a  fixed  habit,  and  is  difficult  to  eradicate;  and 
it  is  not  strange  that  this  is  the  fact.  Indeed,  it 
were  most  unaccountable  that  it  should  be  other- 
wise. Not  love  this  Union,  which  "Washington 
and  his  compeers  gave  us !  which  has  secured  to  us 
blessings  and  prosperity  beyond  those  ever  vouch- 
safed to  any  people  or  nation  under  the  sun!  and 
under  which  we  have  grown  and  prospered  with- 
out a  parallel,  in  the  history  of  the  world!  Yet 
whilst  this  is  true,  and  our  love  for  the  Union 
remains  unabated,  let  not  the  Abolitionists  at  the 
North,  the  source  of  all  our  national  troubles, 
presume  that  we  are  insensible  and  indifferent  to 
their  insolent  and  unwarrantable  aggressions  up- 
on our  Constitutional  and  just  rights.  Though 
long  suffering  and  forbearing,  for  the  sake  of  the 
Union,  and  an  honorable  adjustment  of  all  our 
difficulties,  upon  the  basis  of  the  Crittenden,  or 
some  equivalent  compromise,  the  time  Avill 
arrive,  and  probably  at  no  distant  day,  when 
forbearance  will  cease  to  be  a  virtue,  and  love  of 
the  Union,  patriotism ! 

But  gentlemen  of  the  Convention,  I  do  not  pro- 
pose to  elaborate ;  and  if  what  I  may  say  shall 
have  no  merit  but  brevity,  I  promise  that,  at  least. 
I  was  just  remarking  upon  the  unexampled  pro. 
gress  of  the  Country.  To  illustrate  my  views  I 
would  instance  the  history  of  this  magnificent  city 
in  which  we  are  holding  our  deliberations,  and 
enjoying  the  hospitalities  of  its  citizens.  Situa- 
ted on  the  sun-set  side  of  the  Father  of  Waters, 
lining  the  banks  of  that  noble  river  for  a  distance 
of  nine  or  ten  miles,  reaching  westward  half  that 
distance,  and  containing  a  population  of  170,000 
inhabitants !  How  is  this  unprecedented  growth 
to  be  accounted  for,  except  upon  the  principle 
that  ours  is  the  happiest  and  best  form  of  gov- 
ernment in  the  world? 

The  city  of  St.  Louis  some  forty  years  ago, 
was  but  a  small  village,  numbering,  say  1,500  or 


2,000  inhabitants.  I  was  here  in  the  fall  of  1820. 
It  had  then  but  a  few  narrow,  irregular  streets 
upon  the  river,  under  the  hill,  lined  with  decayed, 
uncomfortable  tenements  and  business  houses. 
It  is  now  compactly  built  up  with  immense  rows 
of  splendid  palaces.  And  this,  we  might  say,  is 
the  work  of  the  last  thirty  years,  for  prior  to 
that  time  its  growth  was  tardy. 

But,  to  address  myself  more  particularly  to  the 
merits  of  the  proposition :  As  before  remarked, 
I  believe  this  Convention  consists  of  Union-loving 
men — all  desiring  its  preservation,  and  differing 
only  in  regard  to  the  means  best  calculated  to  at- 
tain the  end. 

I  have  met  "with  those  (not  members  of  this 
Convention,  however,)  who  thought  the  eight  re- 
maining slave  States  should  secede,  in  view  of  a 
reconstruction  of  the  Government.  From  this 
opinion,  how  honestly  soever  entertained,  I  dis- 
sent, most  decidedly — concurring,  as  I  do,  in  one 
sentiment,  at  least,  with  the  Hon.  W.  H.  Seward, 
that  "the  strength  of  the  vase,  in  which  the  hopes 
"  of  the  nation  are  held,  consists  chiefly  in  its  re- 
"  maining  unbroken." 

This,  however,  is  not  our  present  condition; 
seven  of  the  stars  of  that  bright  constellation 
have  disappeared,  but  not,  I  trust,  forever.  I 
hope  they  may  reappear,  and  that  we  shall  again 
be  a  united,  prosperous  people;  which  may  be 
accomplished  by  each  section  of  the  Union  per- 
forming its  duty,  and  respecting  the  rights  of  the 
other;  and  then  this  nation  will  resume  its  march 
to  greatness  and  glory.  I  believe  this  end  can 
yet  be  attained,  if  wise  counsels  shall  obtain,  and 
war  be  prevented,  until  the  people  of  this  nation, 
whose  government  this  is,  can  be  heard.  The 
truth  is,the  people  have  had  too  little  to  do  with  the 
administration  of  their  own  government.  They 
have  lost  sight  of  the  watchword,  "That  the  price 
of  liberty  is  eternal  vigilance."  They  have  been 
attending  to  anything  and  everything  but  the 
Government,  which  is  the  main  thing,  about 
which  they  have  taken  but  little  thought.  It  has 
been  turned  over  to  reckless  demagogues  and 
politicians,  who  in  the  main  have  had  but  little 
interest  at  stake,  except  their  own  aggrandize- 
ment. 

But,  gentlemen,  our  business  is  to  devise  the 
ways  to  restore  the  Government;  and  how  shall 
it  be  done  ?  I  have  been  surprised  at  some  of  the 
legal  profession  arguing  the  doctrine  of  the  right 
of  secession  and  the  powers  of  the  Government  to 
take  care  of  itself,  about  which  there  is  and  can 
be  no  controversy. 

It  seems  difficult  for  some  gentlemen  of  that 
profession  to  realize  the  present  condition  of  the 
country,  and  to  adapt  their  mode  of  reasoning  to 
the  exigencies  of  the  times.  We  are  in  the  midst 
of  a  great  revolution;  seven  States  have  declared 
for  themselves,  and  have  set  up  a  separate  con- 
federacy; and  others  are  entertaining  the  propo- 


175 


sition  whether,  in  view  of  all  the  facts  and  cir- 
cumstances present  and  prospective,  they  shall 
change  their  relations  to  the  government,  or  main- 
tain their  present  status ;  the  latter  seems  to  be  their 
true  position,  and  with  a  proper  and  honorable 
adjustment  of  our  difficulties,  will  so  continue. 
It  is  conceded  that  the  border  slave  States  owe  a 
sacred  duty  to  the  country,  and  if  the  Union  is 
saved,  it  must  be  through  their  mediation.  Mis- 
souri, the  greatest  of  all,  occupying  a  central  po- 
sition and  endowed  with  all  the  elements  of  wealth 
and  power,  owes  a  double  duty  to  herself  and  to 
the  country.  She  is  entitled  to  be  heard  and  will 
be  heard.  Let  her,  therefore,  take  care  that  her 
potency  be  not  lost  by  unwise  councils. 

Gentlemen,  if  we  were  here  to  discuss  the  ab- 
stract, theoretical,  constitutional  right  of  seces- 
sion, and  the  power  and  duty  of  the  Government 
to  uphold  and  protect  the  supremacy  of  the  Con- 
stitution and  laws,  with  reference,  to  the  future, 
ignoring  what  has  already  occurred,  there  could 
be  no  question  as  to  its  relevancy  and  prosperity. 
But,  gentlemen,  disruption  of  the  Government 
has  already  occurred  to  some  extent,  and  it  be- 
comes our  sacred  duty  to  save  the  Government, 
if  we  can ;  and  how  should  we  act  in  the  premises 
as  loyal  citizens  ?  We  desire  to  save  what  now 
remains ;  to  bring  back  the  States  that  have  de- 
parted, and  to  preserve  the  whole  Union  for  all 
time. 

How  is  this  to  be  done?  By  force?  No.  God 
forbid.  What  would  the  Union  be  worth  if  saved 
by  the  sword?  But  the  Union  must  be  saved; 
and  may  Missouri  do  her  whole  duty  in  the 
work. 

Gentlemen,  we  all  agree  in  one  opinion,  at 
least— from  which  I  do  not  know  a  dissenting 
voice  in  or  out  of  this  Convention — viz.,  that  co- 
ercion on  the  part  of  the  General  Government  of 
the  seceded  States  would  inevitably  ruin  the 
country  and  destroy  the  Government. 

So  fully  are  we  assured  of  the  truth  of  this 
proposition,  that  we  do  not  hesitate  to  assert  that 
coercion  in  no  case  will  be  tolerated. 

Resistance  to  the  higher  powers  of  the  Govern- 
ment, actuated  solely  by  the  false  idea  of  carry- 
ing out  to  the  letter  the  principles  involved  in  a 
solemn  oath  to  execute  and  uphold  the  Constitu- 
tion and  the  laws,  regardless  of  consequences, 
may  become  the  most  sacred  duty  of  the  most 
loyal  citizen;  and  in  so  doing  he  would  be  sup- 
porting the  Constitution  in  its  spirit  and  intent; 
for  the  power  to  execute  the  laws  was  not  given 
to  destroy,  but  to  preserve  the  Government. 

I  am  aware  that  it  is  insisted  that  no  one  pre- 
tends that  the  President  entertains  any  such 
ridiculous  idea  as  that  of  invading  the  seceded 
States  with  armed  men  to  subdue  them 
into  obedience;  but  he  does  intend  to  possess  and 
occupy  the  Government  property  in  those  States ; 
and  collect  the  revenue,  unless  means  are  denied 


him  by  his  masters,  the  People;  and  although 
such  might  not  be  considered  coercion  in  the 
popular  sense  of  the  term;  yet  if  it  will  inaugur- 
ate war,  it  deserves  equally  to  be  deprecated. 

Now,  gentlemen,  what  is  the  purport  of  this 
fifth  resolution,  reported  by  the  Committee  on 
Federal  Relations  ?  Does  it  not  deprecate,  in  the 
most  emphatic  terms,  the  horrors  and  ruin  result- 
ing to  the  country,  from  the  attempt  at  coercion 
by  the  Government;  and  entreating,  in  the  most 
patriotic  language,  both  the  General  Government 
and  the  seceding  States,  to  stay  the  arm  of  mili- 
tary power,  and  on  no  pretense,  to  bring  upon  the 
nation  the  horrors  of  civil  war  ?  And  I  ask  you, 
gentlemen,  what  is  proposed  by  the  amend- 
ment offered  by  the  delegate  from  Clay 
to  this  fifth  resolution?  It  simply  adds  the  addi- 
tional idea,  not  of  threat,  not  of  menace;  but 
sa3'ing  to  the  belligerent  parties,  be  still;  if  you 
shall,  in  your  madness,  however,  disregard  our 
admonitions,  and  turn  a  deaf  ear  to  our  counsels; 
we  forewarn  you  now,  not  to  look  for  aid  or  com- 
fort from  us ;  for  in  this  war  we  have  no  lot  or 
part.  We  intend  our  position  to  be  that  of  strict 
neutrality.  Does  such  additional  idea  militate 
against  the  conservative  spirit  and  tenor  of  the 
whole  report  of  the  committee?  I  think  not;  but 
on  the  contrary,  gives  to  it  the  finishing  touch. 
If  I  thought  the  amendment  was  in  conflict  with 
the  report,  (for  I  am  against  conflicts  just  now,)  as 
good  a  Union  man  as  I  know  the  mover  to  be,  I 
would  vote  against  it;  fori  indorse  the  report, 
and  regard  it  in  all  its  parts,  with  the  amendment, 
just  suited  to  our  exigencies;  and  as  cred- 
itable to  the  distinguished  Chairman  who  drafted 
and  reported  it,  as  that  of  the  Declaration 
our  Independence  was  to  the  head  and  heart  of 
the  immortal  Jefferson.  If  the  mediation  of  Mis- 
souri shall  contribute  even  remotely  to  restore 
peace  to  our  distracted  country,  the  report  would 
deserve  to  be  regarded  as  sacred  as  the  Declara- 
tion. The  power  that  saves  is  as  deserving  of 
our  admiration  as  that  which  produces.  I  shall 
vote  for  the  report  and  resolutions  with  or  with- 
out the  amendment,  but  I  prefer  the  amendment. 
The  report  in  some  few  particulars  may  state 
some  things  too  strongly,  and  which  some  may 
suppose  might  have  been  omitted  without  mar- 
ring the  harmony  of  the  whole,  but  they  are  im- 
material, comparatively,  and  constitute  no  valid 
objection  with  me. 

Mr.  Redd.    I  desire  to  say  a  word. 

The  Chair.  The  gentleman  having  spoken 
the  second  time,  will  not  speak  to  the  merits  of 
the  report,  but  he  has  the  right  to  speak  to  the 
substitute. 

Mr.  Redd.  I  desire  to  state  the  reasons  why  I 
shall  vote. 

The  Chair.  The  gentleman  will  allow  me  to 
stop  him.  I  desire  to  say,  that  notwithstanding 
my  decision,  he  can  proceed  to  debate  the  report 


176 


with  leave.  If  he  desires  to  confine  himself  to  the 
amendment,  he  can  proceed  without  leave. 

Mr.  Redd.  I  do  not  desire  on  this  occasion  to 
enter  into  a  discussion  in  regard  to  that  report, 
hut  I  desire  to  eive  my  reasons  why  I  shall  vote 
for  this  substitute  in  place  of  the  amendment. 
That  amendment,  I  have  no  objection  to,  as  far 
as  it  goes.  It  states  the  proposition  that 
Missouri  will  not  aid  the  General  Government  in 
commencing  the  war  upon  the  seceded  States. 
That  position  is  true,  as  is  also  the  position  that 
she  will  not  aid  the  seceded  States  in  the  present 
circumstances  in  commencing  the  Avar  upon  the 
General  Government.  Missouri  is  for  peace, 
compromise,  concession,  conciliation  and 
settlement  of  all  the  questions  involved; 
and        while        I        deem        it        is  true, 

I  think  it  does  not  express  the  whole 
truth.  If  Missouri  undertakes  to  say  to  the 
General  Government  what  she  will  do,  she  owes 
to  herself,  to  her  own  dignity  as  a  sovereign  and 
independent  State,  not  only  to  tell  the  truth,  but 
to  tell  the  whole  truth.  In  my  judgment,  the 
amendment  does  not  do  that.  If,  let  a  col- 
lision occur  as  it  may— if,  the  General  Govern- 
ment, refusing  to  compromise,  refusing  conces- 
sion, standing  as  it  has  done  during  the  last 
session  of  Congress  upon  the  proposition  that 
we  have  no  compromise  to  make;  if  the  General 
Government  continues  in  the  future  to  occupy 
that  position,  let  the  conflict  commence  as  it 
may;  if  the  Government  then  prosecutes  that 
conflict  with  the  determination  of  compelling 
the  seceded  States  to  submit,  then,  In  my  judg- 
ment—yes,  I  may  say  I  know  it— Missouri  will 
take  her  stand  by  the  other  States ;  and  if  she 
speaks  of  what  she  is  going  to  do,  she  ought  to 
speak  the  whole  truth.  I  would  much  rather  she 
would  not  say  anything  on  the  subject,  but  leave 
the  matter  to  be  dealt  with  as  the  contingency 
might  arise.  If  it  ever  should  arise,  and  God 
forbid  that  it  should,  I  would  much  rather  she 
should  say  nothing  on  the  subject  than  not 
speak  the  whole  truth.  This  substitute  does  not 
pledge  Missouri  to  any  course.  I  shall,  there- 
fore ,  support  it  in  place  of  the  amendment. 

Mr.  Vanbuskirk.  Mr.  President,  and  gentle- 
men of  the  Convention :  I  owe  a  duty  to  my  con- 
stituents at  home  which  requires  that  I  should 
trouble  you  on  this  occasion.  I  am  satisfied  ev- 
ery member  of  this  Convention  has  made  up  his 
mind  as  to  what  his  duty  is  as  a  member  of  this 
Convention.  But  there  are  other  circumstances 
which  induce  me  to  speak  on  this  occasion.  I 
am  a  delegate  from  a  District  in  this  State,  and 
I  represent  a  majority  of  the  people  of  that  Dis- 
trict who  differ  with  the  minority  which  my  col- 
league (Mr.  Hudgins,)  represents.  He  has  an- 
nounced his  views  to  this  Convention,  and  I 
should  be  implicated  by  my  people  as  a  submis- 
sionist  if  I  did  not  take  occasion  to  allude  to  that 


gentleman's  remarks.  I  do  not  suppose  that 
anything  I  could  say  here  would  determine  the 
action  of  this  Convention.  In  my  opinion,  how- 
ever, this  whole  matter  is  brought  to  this  point — 
that  it  is  Union  upon  condition,  that  it 
is  Union  Avith  the  "but's"  and  "ifs/'or  under  ex- 
isting circumstances,  it  is  emphatically  Union. 
My  position  is  that  Ave  ha\-e  to  act  with  the  lights 
before  us,  and  determine  if  Ave  are  for  the  Union 
or  against  it.  I  suppose  every  man  in  this  house 
knows  whether  he  is  for  or  against  the  Union. 
When  gentlemen  read  that  Lincoln's  Inaugural  is 
a  message  of  Avar,  and  that  the  American  people 
are  going  to  adopt  coercion  in  forcing  the  South, 
it  occurs  to  me,  and  is  conclusive  to  my  mind, 
that  the  "wish  is  father  to  the  thought,"  and  that 
they  are  not  willing  to  rely  upon  the  people  of 
Missouri  to  meet  the  emergency,  but  that  they 
want  to  get  into  condition  to  meet  that  expected 
calamity.  It  is  not  six  months  ago  Yancey  pro- 
claimed that  he  was  a  better  Union  man  than  any- 
body else ;  that  he  was  a  strict  construction  Union 
man;  but  that  if  Abraham  Lincoln  was  elected, 
he  was  for  immediate  secession — that  the  South 
would  go  out,  and  it  did  go  out.  He  was  a 
conditional  Union  man — and  every  man  is  a  con- 
ditional Union  man  who  advocates  that  side.  The 
people  of  Alabama  severed  their  connection  Avith 
the  Union.  They  did  not  wait  to  ascertain  defi- 
nitely whether  any  satisfactory  adjustment  could 
be  made.  They  Avere  bound  to  go  out  of  the 
Union.  And  I  tell  you,  that  e\rery  proposi- 
tion looking  to  an  ultimatum,  that  is  brought 
into  this  Convention,  in  any  form,  will 
haAre  for  its  ultimate  object  the  severance  of  the 
connection  of  Missouri  with  the  General  Govern- 
ment, for  I  tell  you  that  the  sentiment  of  seces- 
sion, as  it  has  manifested  itself  since  Ave  got  into 
this  condition,  has  been  shoAvn  to  be  like  the 
poisonous  simoom  of  Africa,  which  sweeps  and 
destroys  everything  before  it.  But  an  issue  was 
made  between  the  gentleman  (Mr.  Hudgins)  and 
myself.  He  said  he  was  in  favor  of  the  Union 
upon  condition,  and  he  fixed  up  a  man  of  straw, 
and  then,  Avithout  any  mental  reservation,  made 
an  issue  in  relation  to  the  Union.  He  tells  you 
that  there  is  already  a  Southern  Confederacy — 
that  he  is  opposed  to  coercion — that  whether  there 
is  a  right  of  revolution  or  not,  a  Southern  Con- 
federacy has  been  formed;  and  he  tells  you  fur- 
ther, that  if  there  are  to  be  two  Confederacies,  he 
is  in  favor  of  going  into  the  Southern  Confedera- 
cy. He  is  in  favor  of  laying  down  an  ultimatum, 
and  if  the  North  Avill  not  agree  to  it,  then,  he 
says,  the  sentiment  of  the  people  Avhom  he  rep- 
resents upon  this  floor  is  such,  that  they  are  Avill- 
ing  to  stake  their  destiny  with  the  South,  to 
join  a  Southern  Confederacy,  and  that  of 
course  cuts  off  all  compromise.  I  make 
a  different  proposition,  and  say  it  is  the  duty  of 
the  border  States  to  work  for  compromise,  to  lay 


177 


down  no  ultimatums,  but  to  work  till  such  guar- 
antees are  obtained  as  will  settle  the  difficulties. 
It  is  the  duty  of  the  border  States  that  they  should 
remain  with  the  people  of  the  Northern  States 
until  every  hope  of  compromise  is  exhausted. 
The  gentleman  says  further  in  his  remarks,  that 
'when  we  separate  we  desire  to  separate  in  peace.' 
Now,  gentlemen  of  the  Convention,  I  am  here 
representing  a  majority  of  a  constituency,  who 
do  not  desire  any  separation  at  all,  in  peace  or 
war,  if  we  can  get  any  compromise  at  all  which 
shall  restore  peace.  He  has  said  that  we  should 
say  as  much  as  the  people  of  the  North  have  said 
to  their  fanatical  brethren  there— that  they  should 
not  coerce  the  seceding  States  without  first 
marching  over  their  dead  bodies.  That  is  all  cor- 
rect. And  I  say  also  that  we  should  say  to  the 
fanatics  of  the  South  that,  you'll  have  first  to 
walk  over  the  dead  bodies  of  the  border  States 
before  you  can  bring  on  a  conflict. 

Again  the  gentleman  says,  "Missouri  will 
make  no  threat;  let  her  standby  the  South."  Yes, 
make  no  threats,  stand  by  the  South,  and  not  dis- 
criminate between  the  seceded  States  and  those 
that  are  not!  We  must  make  no  threats,  but  the 
gentleman  discloses  in  the  same  connection,  that 
unless  the  North  grants  what  we  ask,  we  will  se- 
cede. I  did  not  come  here  with  that  kind  of 
doctrine.  I  said  I  was  in  favor  of  standing  by 
the  people  of  the  South,  and  the  North,  and  the 
East,  and  the  West.  That  is  the  doctrine  which 
I  advocated  before  my  people.  I  did  not  contend 
before  them  that  we  must  unite  upon  an  ulti- 
matum, and  that  if  the  North  did  not  agree  to  it, 
we  would  unite  with  the  South.  I  would  be  re- 
creant to  my  duty,  if  I  did  not  object  to  that 
code  of  reasoning  here.  I  do  not  mean  to  say 
that  my  colleague  is  advocating  anything  which 
he  did  not  declare  before  his  people.  He  made 
strong  Southern  rights  speeches  before  his 
people,  and  his  people  voted  understanding^. 
He  had  a  desperate  game  to  play,  but  it  was  a 
game  he  must  play  or  he  could  not  be  elected.  I 
do  not  say  he  did  it  designedly — but  I  say  there 
was  a  "cold  deck  rung  in,"  and  the  consequence 
is,  that  he  comes  here  representing  a  minority, 
while  I  represent  a  majority.  I  do  not  say  he 
misrepresents  his  constituency,  for  a  great  many 
of  them  arc  square  and  flat-footed  for  secession. 

Mr.  Hudgins.  I  desire  to  ask  a  question,  as 
this  seems  to  be  a  personal  matter. 

Mr.  Vanbuskirk.  Nothing  is  intended  as  per- 
sonal. 

Mr.  Hudgins.  I  presume  not,  but  I  just  wish 
to  explain.  How  many  votes  behind  was  the 
nearest  man  to  me  on  your  ticket? 

Mr.  Vanbuskirk.  I  did  not  do  justice  in  that 
matter. 

Mr.  Hudgins.    Mr.  Singleton  was  the  nearest 


Mr.  Vanbuskirk.  I  will  explain.  Itwasourin- 
tention  to  act  in  concert  in  our  district.  Mr.  Wil- 
son wrote  a  letter  which  I  indorsed,  and  placed 
myself  upon  it,  and  went  to  work  in  good  faith 
to  bring  about  a  united  action.  We  were  entire- 
ly united  upon  Mr.  Wilson,  and  he  got  some  800 
or  900  more  votes  than  Mr.  Hudgins;  I  got  some 
350  more  than  Mr.  Hudgins.  But  there  were  two 
other  candidates — and  that  was  where  this  desper- 
ate game  of  "cold  deck"  came  in — which  elected 
Mr  Hudgins  between  two  Union  men.  Mr. 
Singleton  ran  in  Andrew  and  Nodaway,  and  Mr. 
Templeton  in  Holt  and  Atchison  counties.  Mr, 
Templeton  got  about  1,000  votes;  in  Andrew 
county,  Mr.  Singleton  got  300  more  than  Mr. 
Hudgins,  and  where  they  both  lived.  Mr.  Sin- 
gleton got  a  small  vote  in  Nodaway  county, — I 
don't  know  exactly  how  many — but  putting  both 
Templeton  and  Singleton'  s  vote  together  made 
about  400  more  than  Mr.  Hudgins  received.  But 
here's  where  this  "cold  deck"  by  which  Mr. 
Hudgins  got  about  GOO  or  700. 

The  Chair.  This  is  purely  a  personal  matter, 
and  cannot  be  allowed  to  proceed  further. 

Mr.  Vanbuskirk.  It  was  called  out,  and  I 
only  desire  to  show  the  facts.  Now,  in  reference 
to  this  amendment.  In  my  opinion,  the  fifth 
resolution  takes  the  true  position.  It  denies  that 
any  adequate  cause  exists  for  secession  or  revolu- 
tion; that  the  employment  of  military  force 
would  destroy  all  prospects  of  peace ;  it  depre- 
cates any  such  action,  and  leaves  us  free  to  act 
under  the  circumstances,  when  they  come  up, 
just  as  we  may  think  honorable  and  right.  But 
this  amendment  goes  further,  and  says  we  shall 
fnrnish  neither  men  nor  money  to  coerce,  either  on 
the  one  side  or  the  other.  Now,  supposing  a 
large  portion  of  the  people  of  Alabama  should 
desire  to  return  to  their  allegiance  to  the  General 
Government,  and  should  demand  at  our  hands 
assistance  to  secure  their  rights.  I  say  Missouri 
should  keep  her  hands  clear  of  all  such  emergen- 
cies, for  six  months  may  make  a  very  material 
change.  Other  circumstances  might  arise  which 
would  embarrass  our  action  under  this  amend- 
ment. We  might  be  forced  out  of  the  Union  be- 
fore we  could  get  a  reaction  North  or  South.  Our 
present  Governor  would  give  the  most  liberal 
construction  in  favor  of  this  amendment, 
toward  secession,  that  could  possibly  be 
given.  He  would  grasp  at  everything  in  his 
power  to  take  the  State  out  of  the  Union  in  a 
certain  contingency.  Suppose  Fort  Sumter,  now 
in  the  hands  of  the  Government,  still  remains 
in  the  condition  it  is,  and  that  South  Carolina 
shoidd  conclude  that  her  safety  required  that  she 
|  should  take  Fort  Sumter,  and  that  Maj.  Ander- 
|  son  should  repel  the  charge,  just  a  few  hours  be- 
|  fore  orders  came  from  Lincoln  to  evacuate — this 
j  would  no  doubt  be  construed  as  an  act  of  coer- 
cion, and  the  Governor,  so  regarding  it  as  in  vio- 

12 


178 


lation  of  the  action  of  this  Convention,  would  at 
once  send  troops  and  take  possession  of  the 
Arsenal  and  Sub-Treasury,  and  then  take  us  out 
of  the  Union.  If  this  amendment  is  calcu- 
lated to  produce  that  kind  of  interpretation 
is  it  not  better  to  throw  it  aside  as  an 
apple  of  discord  and  take  the  original  reso- 
lution ?  Now,  I  recollect  a  little  religious  anec- 
dote that  will  apply  to  this.  It  is  in  the  old  Hard- 
shell Baptist  line,  and  if  any  man  has  a  right  to 
take  it  personally  it  is  myself  There  was  a  cer- 
tain church  which  was  sound  in  regard  to  the 
old  doctrine  of  predestination,  foreordination,  &c. 
One  day  a  new  preacher  came  along,  professing 
the  new-fangled  heresy  of  a  non-resurrection  and 
that  sort  of  thing,  and  after  service  one 
of  the  brethren,  who  had  heard  the  dis- 
course, said  to  another:  "  Did  you  ever  hear 
such  a  discourse  as  that?  Do  you  believe  it?" 
'*  Oh  yes/'  was  the  reply,  "  and  more  too." — 
Now  I  believe  this  amendment  is  the  more 
too,  and  I  object,  for  that  reason,  to  it.  It  is  cal- 
culated to  misguide  us,  and  I  hope  it  will  be  re- 
jected. 

Mr.  Hudgins.  I  desire  to  make  a  personal 
explanation.  I  feel,  as  these  things  have  been 
alluded  to,  it  is  necessary  I  should  make  an  ex- 
planation, in  order  that  a  wrong  impression  may 
not  be  made.  I  see  no  use  in  inolving  the  ques- 
tion of  an  election  in  any  argument  here,  and  I 
regret  it.  I  desire  to  say,  in  justice  to  myself, 
that  I  was  not  a  candidate  for  a  seat  here  at  all. 
I  am  here,  not  having  been  a  candidate  before  the 
people.  My  name  was  substituted  for  the  name 
Of  Judge  Butts,  who  was  on  the  Constitutional 
Union  ticket,  in  my  District.  My  friends  told 
me  that  if  I  would  consent  to  allow  my  name 
to  be  used  I  would  be  certain  of  an  elec- 
tion. Men  were  sent  through  the  District 
about  a  week  before  the  election,  with- 
drawing my  name,  and  stating  that  I  was 
not  a  candidate,  and  in  some  places  I  was 
not  run  at  all;  I  do  not  know  what  the  gen- 
tleman means  by  "  cold  deck."  I  was  put  on  a 
ticket  with  two  others,  and  I  run  with  them  on  a 
constitutional  Union  platform,  which  I  hold  in 
my  hand,  and  which  any  gentleman  can  read  if 
he  desires.  As  to  my  speech,  which  the  gentle- 
man has  criticised,  I  think  he  has  not  understood 
it.  His  constituents  will  understand  it, 
and  will  see  his  representations  of  it  are  not 
sustained  by  the  speech  itself;  they  will  see  that 
I  have  taken  the  same  ground  here  as  there.  Now, 
in  regard  to  another  matter.  Mr.  Vanbuskirk 
lives  in  Holt;  there  are  four  counties  in  the  dis- 
trict; he  ran  as  as  an  unconditional  Union  man, 
though  when  pressed,  he  said  when  the  other 
slave  States  went  out,  he  was  in  favor  of  Missouri 
going  out, 

Mr.  Vanbuskirk.  The  gentleman  is  not  do- 
ing me  justice  exactly;  the  question  usually  put 


all  over  the  State  was,  when  all  the  fourteen 
States  go  out;  when  the  last  ray  of  hope  is  ex- 
tinguished, where  will  you  go  ?  At  first  I  said  I 
would  go  with  the  South,  but  after  that  I  said,  in 
the  event  the  Government  is  destroyed,  I  am  for 
Missouri  falling  back  upon  her  reserved  rights, 
and  settling  down  where  her  interests  would  be 
protected,  and  not  be  coupled  on  to  a  Northern 
or  Southern  confederacy,  contrary  to  her  honor 

Or  INTEREST. 

Mr.  Hudgins.  Just  one  word.  If  there  is  any- 
thing about  the  "  decks"  it  is  this— my  friend 
being  in  Holt,  and  there  being  four  counties  in 
the  district,  the  ticket  in  my  county  was  Mr. 
Wilson,  and  he  carried  that  county.  Mr.  Van- 
buskirk and  Singleton  were  in  Andrew  and  Nod- 
away, and  the  ticket  in  the  county  in  which  Mr. 
Vanbuskirk  lives  was  Robert  Wilson.  Mr.  Van- 
buskirk and  Mr.  Iempleton  ran  in  Atchison,  and 
so  the  ticket  doubled  on  him;  and  he  got  the 
Singleton  and  Wilson  influence  in  Andrew  and 
Nodaway,  and  the  Wilson  and  Templeton  influ- 
ence in  Atchison  and  Holt,  and  therefore  he  is 
second  in  the  race.  If  there  is  any  "  cold  deck" 
in  it,  it  is  on  their  side  and  not  ours.  But  this 
was  all  out  of  a  business  way,  and  I  regret  that 
allusion  should  have  been  made  to  it. 

Mr.  Gamble.  Mr.  President :  In  the  discus- 
sion of  this  amendment,  arguments  have  been 
made  that  cover  the  entire  ground  of  the  report 
in  regard  to  the  relations  of  this  State  to  the 
United  States  and  to  her  sister  States.  I,  sir,  at 
this  time,  propose  simply  to  speak  to  the  question 
which  is  before  the  body.  I  do  not  intend,  on 
the  motion  to  adopt  a  substitute  in  place  of  the 
amendment,  to  discuss  the  merits  of  ths  report. 
I  do  not  intend  to  say  one  word  upon  that  sub- 
ject, or  upon  the  relations  that  this  State  now 
sustains,  either  to  the  General  Government  or  to 
any  other  State.  Whenever  that  question  arises, 
as  there  has  been  some  criticism  of  that  report, 
and  as  some  gentlemen  have  given  it  as  their 
opinion  that  there  were  few  who  would  adopt 
every  word  and  sentence  in  it,  I  will  speak  to  it 
fully.  I  am  responsible  for  every  Word  and  sen- 
tence in  the  report,  for  I  wrote  it.  I  am  ready  to 
prove  every  fact  it  asserts,  vindicate  every  argu- 
ment it  produces,  and  I  think  to  satisfy  every  in- 
telligent mind  in  regard  to  every  prophecy  it 
makes  of  the  future. 

The  substitute  of  the  amendment  which  the 
gentleman  from  Clay  proposed  to  add  to  the  fifth 
resolution,  is  that  the  commencement  of  hostili- 
ties by  either  the  General  Government  or  the  se- 
ceding States,  must  necessarily  be  regarded  by 
Missouri  as  unfriendly  and  offensive.  Tne  tone 
of  the  original  resolution  is  the  tone  of  con- 
ciliation. It  is  the  tone  of  entreaty  to  powers 
that  we  cannot  control,  powers  that  will  act 
for  themelves.  Knowing  that  we  are  not 
able  to     control    them     we    address    to    them 


179 


the  language  of  remonstrance,  against  an 
apprehended  course  of  policy.  The  amendment 
goes  furl  her — it  says  to  both  parties  we  will  not 
aid  either  of  you  in  any  attempt  of  making  Avar. 
The  substitute  for  the  amendment  says,  we  will 
regard  the  hostile  action  of  either  of  you  as  un- 
friendly and  offensive  to  Missouri.  That  is  to 
say,  gentlemen,  we  are  preparing  ourselves  to  be 
insulted.  We  are  declaring  that  we  will  be 
offended — that  we  will  regard  ourselves  as  treat- 
ed in  an  unfriendly  manner,  and  we  pledge  our- 
selves to  an  occasion  that  would  arise  when  any- 
thing is  done  offensive  to  Missouri.  Is  not  that  the 
meaning,  is  not  that  the  consequence?  When  one 
man  tells  another  that  if  he  uses  particular  lan- 
guage he  will  punish  him,  then,  if  the  other  uses 
that  language,  is  he  not  bound  to  dissent  and  con- 
si  I  er  himself  pledged  in  order  to  attempt  to  punish 
him?  Does  not  this  substitute  therefore  involve 
the  declaration  on  our  part  that  if  hostilities  are 
used  we  will  commit  ourselves  as  against 
the  party  who  first  uses  the  hostilities — we 
will  commit  ourselves  as  those  who  are  injur- 
ed and  offended.  I  apprehend  that  it  involves  it 
plainly,  and  the  redemption  of  that  pledge  may 
consist  in  our  taking  part  in  the  actual  hostilities 
that  may  be  carried  on.  Again,  the  substitute 
says,  we  shall  take  this  action  on  the  commence- 
ment of  hostilities.  Gentlemen,  what  shall  be 
the  commencement  of  hostilities  ?  What  does 
the  substitute  mean  when  it  says  that  the  com- 
mencement of  hostilities  shall  be  regarded, 
&c?  Shall  this  commencement  be  when 
another  vessel  of  war  comes  into  the  har- 
bor or  near  the  harbor  of  Pensacola,— 
with  marines,  sailors,  and  possibly  some  soldiers 
on  board?  Is  that  the  commencement  of  hostili- 
ties? Or  is  it  when  the  guns  shall  be  opened 
from  the  land  upon  that  vessel;  or  when  a 
vessel  of  war  with  all  her  armament  and 
soldiers  on  board  comes  into  our  waters, 
though  she  may  never  have  fired  a  gun,  or  made 
any  hostile  demonstrations?  A  case  may  happen 
similar  10  the  case  of  which  we  were  informed 
by  the  newspapers  the  other  day,  when  some  per- 
son at  one  of  the  batteries  on  shore  discharged  a 
gun  that  was  pointed  at  Fort  Sumter.  Major 
Anderson  immediately  ran  out  his  guns  to  answer, 
but  was  prevented  from  so  doing  by  a  messenger 
wi'h  a  flag;  of  truce,  who  informed  him  that  it 
was  unintentional  and  undesigned.  Suppose 
that  flag  had  not  been  sent  and  Major 
Anderson  had  discharged  his  guns  at  the 
citizens  who  were  at  the  battery,  and  the  ques- 
tion would  naturally  arise,  who  commenced  the 
hostility?  Yet  we  are  to  be  offended,  and  to  de- 
termine upon  the  fact  of  an  unfriendly  action; 
we  have  pledged  ourselves  to  do  so. 

I  regard  the  substitute,  therefore,  as  contain- 
ing within  itself  an  undefined  pledge  on  the  part 
of  the  people  of  the  State  of  Missouri  that  they 


are  to  engage  in  a  conflict,  or  become  dependent 
upon  every  lie  finding  its  way  into  the  newspapers, 
for  their  action  in  regard  to  a  conflict  between 
the  General  Government  and  the  Southern  States. 

I  hold,  sir,  that  thi*  substitute,  while  it  covert- 
ly involves  all  that  is  declared  in  the  amendment, 
involves  also  a  declaration  that  is  hostile  to  the 
entire  spirit  of  that  report,  as  all  of  you,  or  at 
least  most  of  you,  will  agree.  It  will  be  easily 
seen,  by  examining  the  language,  that  it  is  in- 
consistent with  the  designs  for  which  this  Con- 
vendon  has  assembled.  This  Convention  was 
assembled  for  the  purpose  of  considering  the 
present  condition  and  relations  of  the  State  of 
Mis-ouri  to  the  United  States  and  to  the  other 
States.  It  was  never  expected  by  the  people  that 
we  should  make  declarations  that  should  run 
through  any  number  of  years,  or  look  to  any 
subsequent  period  in  the  history  of  the  country, 
for  the  fulfilment  of  our  declarations. 

The  amendment  says  we  will  never  countenance 
or  aid  a  seceding  State  in  making  war  upon  the 
General  Government,  and  will  never  furnish  men 
or  money  to  the  General  Government  to  coerce  a 
seceding  State.  What  is  the  condition  of  those 
States  that  have  seceded?  Some  say  there  is  a 
government  already  established.  Some  say  they 
are  already  established,  as  a  foreign  power,  and 
if  you  adopt  the  doctrine  of  secession,  you  are 
forced  to  admit  that  fact.  If  that  be  the  condi- 
tion of  those  States,  what  follows?  That  the 
United  States  must  bear  national  relations  to 
them,  and  national  quarrels  may  arise  upon 
.  questions  that  concern  national  relations  and  na- 
tional interests;  and  shall  we  attempt  to  declare 
that  if  they  should  make  var  upon  us,  we  will 
not  furnish  men  or  money  to  coerce  them  ?  Or 
if  they  do  anything  else  that  is  unfriendly  and 
hostile,  that  we  will  not  defend  ourselves  against 
them?  If  they,  as  intimated  in  some  newspa- 
pers, shall  issue  letters  of  marque  and  reprisal, 
thereby  disturbing  the  commerce  of  the  United 
States,  shall  we  allow  this  infraction  of  our  rights, 
for  fear  that  we  should  be  affording  men  and 
money  to  the  Government  of  the  United  States 
to  coerce  them?  No.  If  thev  assume  a  nation- 
al character,  they  must  bear  naional  responsi- 
bilities. They  must  stand  as  a  nation  opposed, 
so  far  as  their  interest  is  concerned,  to  the  nation 
from  which  they  are  separated.  I  say  it  is  not 
proper  that  we  should  pledge  ourselves  that  we 
will  not  furnish  men  and  money  when  our 
salvation  may  depend  upon  our  so  doing; 
when  it  may  be  necessary  to  open  the  mouth  of 
the  Mississippi  river  to  navigation,  and  make  war 
against  ihem  as  a  nation,  and  destroy  them  if 
they,  as  a  nation,  committing  national  offenses, 
are  unwilling  to  yield  us  our  rights.  Mu<  h  as  I 
desire  to  conciliate  our  Southern  sisters,  having  all 
the  feeling  and  desire  to  bring;  them  back,  having 
all  the   feeling  that  would  induce   one  to  offer 


180 


to  them  every  inducement  to  come  back, 
having  the  strongest  desire  that  they  shall 
be  reunited  to  the  family  from  which  they 
have  been  separated,  and  that  we  shall  be 
harmonious  in  all  the  future;  yet,  gentlemen, 
if  we  exist  for  a  few  years  in  separate  nations, 
we  cannot  but  expect  to  see  differences  which 
must  be  settled  as  between  one  nation  and  anoth- 
er. When  there  are  two  nations  permanently 
established  in  contiguity  to  each  other,  the  histo- 
ry of  the  past  shows  that  there  will  be  border 
troubles ;  that  there  will  be  invasions  by  the  peo- 
ple on  one  side  of  the  rights  of  the  people  on  the 
other;  that  commercial  questions  will  spring  up, 
difficult  of  solution,  and  ever  liable  to  give  rise  to 
war.  If  the  Southern  States  accept  the  position 
as  a  separate  nation,  they  must  stand  to  it;  and 
those  ties  which  now  bind  us  together  strong  as 
the  cords  of  steel — these  sympathies  that  make 
us  desire  a  restoration  of  harmony  and  re-union 
of  all  the  parts  of  this  country,  will  be  severed — 
will  be  severed  by  the  habitual  distinction  of  na- 
tionalities— severed  by  the  conflicting  interests 
that  will  arise  between  the  one  and  the  other. 
Let  us  not,  therefore,  undertake  to  look  forward  to 
the  future  indefinitely,  when  we  have  been  called 
to  consider  the  present.  Let  us  net  look  forward 
to  the  future  when  we  ought  to  declare  what  is 
our  present  duty ;  and  let  us  be  content  to  declare 
that  now,  having  our  sympathies  with  the  people 
of  the  South,  and  our  interest  bound  up  in  the 
Union,  we  base  all  hopes  on  a  returning  spirit  of 
harmony,  and  a  peaceful  settlement  and  ad- 
justment of  the  present  difficulties. 

Such  are  the  views  which  I  entertain  of  the 
propriety  of  this  substitute  and  the  propriety  of 
the  amendment. 

Mr.  Moss.  I  do  not  now  propose  to  inflict  a 
speech  upon  this  Convention,  having  had  an  op- 
portunity of  doing  so  in  the  outset,  but  I  propose 
now  to  confine  myself  strictly  to  the  question 
which  is  before  the  Convention.  In  doing  so, 
permit  me  to  say  that  in  my  humble  opinion 
there  is  now  no  theoretical  question  before  this 
Convention,  and  I  would  say  to  my  friend  from 
Buchanan,  (Mr.  Hall,)  and  my  friend  from  Pike, 
(Mr.  Henderson,)  and  others  who  have  addressed 
this  Convention  upon  the  theory  of  this  Govern- 
ment, that  I  have  no  quarrel  with  them.  I  do 
not  believe  in  the  right  of  secession.  I  entertain 
no  surh  heresy.  But  I  contend  that  we  are  now 
dealing  with  a  great  prac^al  issue.  No  ques- 
tion of  theory  is  now  absorbing  our  atten- 
tion for  it  is  one  of  great  public  policy. — 
It  is  in  vain  to  deny  it.  It  is  in  vain  to  deny  that 
a  revolution  has  been  set  on  foot.  I  do  not  say 
that  that  revolution  has  been  successful.  I  deny 
it,  I  do  not  say  that  there  are  seven  States  now 
exist -in g  as  a  separate  Confederacy— that  they 
have  succeed  in  achieving  their  independence. 
Far  from  it.     I  occupy  no  such  position.    What 


is  my  position?  I  contend,  gentlemen,  that  a 
revolution  has  been  set  on  foot,  and  I  contend 
that,  to  prevent  that  revolution  from  swallowing 
up  this  Government,  it  is  the  duty  of  every 
Union  man  to  aid  in  undertaking  to  govern 
that  revolution.  That  is  my  position.  It  is  now 
a  great  practical  question :  Shall  we  govern  the 
revolution  and  at  last  restore  peace  and  put  the 
government  on  its  old  foundations  or  shall  we 
sit  quietly  in  our  seats  and  discuss  the  theory  of 
this  Government,  while  the  revolution  is  going  on 
and  threatens  to  overwhelm  us  in  its  mad  career. 
Will  we  control  the  revolution  or  sit  here  and  let 
that  revolution  control  us  ?  That  is  the  question 
that  is  to  be  submitted  to  you,  and  these  speech- 
es that  have  been  made  here  of  three  hours 
length,  upon  the  theory  of  this  Government, 
amount  to  nothing.  In  the  days  of  the  revolution, 
gentlemen,  Lord  North  and  his  followers  in  the 
British  Parliament,  sat  and  discussed  the  th  eo- 
retical  right  to  govern  and  subdue  her  colonies, 
but  whilst  those  theories  were  being  discussed, 
the  American  revolution  went  on  to  a  successful 
end,  and  now  Union  men,  you  who  desire  to  re- 
store peace  and  preserve  the  Government  and 
establish  it  upon  its  ancient  foundations,  I  warn 
you  to  beware  of  the  policy  of  sitting  here  and 
talking  about  the  theories  of  the  Government  while 
the  revolution  is  in  active  progression.  If  you 
would  control  that  revolution,  if  you  would  save 
the  Union  and  thereby  save  your  country,  you 
have  to  act.  I  tell  you  that  you  cannot  sit  here 
and  make  speeches  and  make  declarations  about 
the  theory  of  this  Government,  and  the  impolicy 
of  denying  the  theory  and  all  that  sort  of  thing. 
Gentlemen,  the  theory  has  been  denied  by  the 
States  that  have  seceded.  They  have  revolted, 
and  now  the  great  question  is,  "  Shall  they  drag 
this  Government  into  that  revolution?"  Shall 
they  drag  all  the  States  into  it,  inaugurate  civil 
war  and  wind  up  with  the  destruction  of  the 
whole?  That  is  the  question,  and  now  I  am  pro- 
posing by  this  amendment  to  reach  the  evil.  I 
believe  that  we,  (and  when  I  say  we,  I  mean  the 
Border  States— I  mean  the  States  running  from 
the  Atlantic  on  the  east  to  the  great  Sahara  west, 
this  desert  that  lies  beyond  us,)  occupying  the 
position  that  we  do,  and  having  the  strength  and 
the  power,  ought  to  stand  up  between  the  two 
warring  sections  and  command  the  peace. 

My  worthy  friend  from  St.  Louis,  the  Chair- 
man of  the  Committee,  who  has  just  preceded 
me,  says  that  we  are  now  speaking  to  powers  we 
have  no  right  to  command.  Whilst  that  is  true, 
one  of  these  powers,  at  least,  claims  the  au- 
thority to  command  us.  Now,  how  does  this 
thing  stand?  There  are  some  things  about  which 
the  members  of  this  Convention  agree.  In  re- 
gard to  some  questions  we  are  a  unit.  What  are 
those  questions?  My  worthy  friend  who  sits  be- 
fore me,  (Mr.  Gamble)  with  the  ken  of  a  prophet, 


181 


foretold,  a  few  days  ago,  what  would  be  our 
destiny  in  the  event  of  a  civil  war.  What  did  he 
say?  He  said  if  Missouri  should  go  with  the 
Southern  Confederacy,  in  a  military  point  of 
view,  it  was  annihilation.  That  was  the  enun- 
ciation of  a  great  truth,  but  it  was  not  the  enun- 
ciation of  the  ichole  truth.  I  say  no  matter  where 
she  goes ;  if  she  goes  with  the  North  or  with  the 
South,  in  a  military  point  of  view,  it  is  annihila- 
tion; and  in  viewing  it  in  that  light,  I  am  deter- 
mined that  Missouri  will  say  she  will  not  stand 
by  peaceably  and  see  herself  annihilated.  While 
there  has  been  a  discussion  here  in  regard  to  the 
theory  of  secession,  and  the  right  of  se- 
cession, no  man  upon  this  floor,  I  believe, 
has  ever  denied  the  right  of  revolution. — 
They  say  you  have  no  right  to  revolutionize  or 
resist  the  powers  that  be,  until  they  become  so 
oppressive  that  our  condition  becomes  intolerable. 
Grant  it — that  is  my  view  also.  But  suppose 
that  the  Government  of  the  United  States  should 
require  Missouri  to  do  an  act  that  would  annihi- 
late her :  I  ask  if  the  demands  of  that  Govern- 
ment would  not  be  intolerable.  Yet  my  venera- 
ble friend  here  has  told  you  that  whenever  that 
issue  comes,  whenever  civil  war  is  inaugurated, 
Missouri  is  annihilated?  What  does  he 
mean  by  that?  He  does  not  mean  that 
an  earthquake  will  swallow  up  our  land 
and  houses ;  he  does  not  mean  that  the  great 
Missouri  would  dry  up  to  its  fountain,  and  the 
Mississippi  be  obliterated;  he  means  that  your 
commerce  would  be  destroyed,  your  houses  would 
be  desolated,  your  land  drenched  in  blood, 
and  that  all  that  makes  us  now  great,  glorious 
and  powerful  would  be  swept  away.  That  is  what 
he  means,  and  that  would  be  our  fate,  no  matter 
what  happened  in  a  military  aspect.  I  tell  you 
that  I  have  been  asked  the  question,  Where  will  I 
go  when  that  noble  flag  is  torn  down?  Gentle- 
men, my  hopes  are  anchored  in  the  Union.  When 
that  Union  is  gone,  there  is  no  hope.  As  was 
said  by  the  immortal  Webster,  "  I  have  never  per- 
mitted myself  to  hang  over  the  precipice  of  dis- 
union, to  see  what  may  lie  beyond." 

All  my  hopes  are  in  the  Union,  and  for  that 
reason  I  say  the  border  States  should  interpose 
their  influence  between  the  North  and  the  South, 
to  bring  about  a  reconciliation.  Andif  Abraham 
Lincoln  should  attempt  to  carry  out  the  policy 
recommended  by  some  of  his  Northern  friends,  to 
invade  the  Southern  States,  I  say  that  we  should 
resist  such  invasion,  and  drive  him  into  the  At- 
lantic ocean,  or  drive  him  into  this  great  Western 
Sahara,  where  a  man  travels  four  days  and  four 
nights  without  seeing  a  drop  of  water,  and  where 
nothing  but  a  horned  frog  and  rattlesnake  can 
live.  If  I  was  a  member  of  the  Border  State 
Convention  I  would  go  for  a  resolution  on  the 
part  of  the  border  States  that  no  hostile  army 
should  pass  through  the  territory  of  those  State 


for  the  purpose  of  making  war,  in  the  attempt  to 
adjust  our  present  difficulties.  I  would  drive 
them  into  the  Atlantic  or  the  great  Western  Sa- 
hara. 

As  I  remarked,  I  have  been  asked  where  will  I 
go  ?  What  flag  will  I  fight  under  when  that  flag 
is  gone  ?  I  will  illustrate  that  idea.  You  have 
all  read  the  history  of  Saladin,  the  great  Emperor 
of  the  East.  He  was  a  warrior  and  a  statesman 
at  the  head  of  a  great  empire,  beloved  by  his  sub- 
jects and  soldiers.  At  last,  some  fatal  disease 
fixed  itself  upon  his  frame.  His  physician  warned 
him  that  death  was  approaching.  He  felt  its  icy 
fingers  closing  around  his  heart,  his  friends 
made  a  royal  shroud  for  him,  that  he  might 
be  buried  like  a  king.  His  anxious  people 
were  crowding  around  his  palace  daily  to  hear  of 
the  progress  of  the  fatal  disease.  When  at  last 
he  found  he  was  upon  the  verge  of  death,  he  called 
one  of  his  faithful  followers  to  his  side,  and  said 
to  him,  "  Go,  take  that  shroud  and  hang  it  upon 
the  point  of  a  lance,  and  swing  it  from  the 
battlements  of  my  castle,  and  tell  my  beloved 
people  that  this  is  all  that  remains  of  Saladin 
the  Great."  Gentlemen,  whenever  you  tear  down 
that  old  flag,  hang  out  a  shroud,  for  that  is  the 
only  thing  that  is  typical  of  your  fate.  It  will  be 
the  only  emblem  that  is  fit  to  represent  the  fate 
of  this  great  Republic.  I  believe  it  as  manifestly 
as  I  believe  I  am  now  living. 

Mr.  President,  it  has  been  said  by  the  gentle- 
man from  Pike,  that  this  is  a  Quixotic  idea  that 
has  gotten  into  the  head  of  the  people— this  thing 
of  coercing  a  Southern  State;  and  my  friends, 
Mr.  Hall  of  Buchanan  and  Mr.  Broadhcad  of 
St.  Louis,  ask,  gravely,  what  does  it  mean?  I 
will  answer  you  in  Yankee  style,  by  putting  an- 
other question  in  return.  I  will  ask,  what  do 
you  mean  by  it?  What  construction  do  you  put 
upon  the  word  coercion  ? 

Mr.  Henderson.    Subjugation. 

Mr.  Moss.  My  friend  says  subjugation.  Then 
he  can  alter  my  amendment,  if  he  chooses  to  do 
so,  to  the  word  '"'subjugation"  instead  of  "coer- 
cion." Well,  now,  I  ask  any  man  of  common 
sense  in  this  audience,  if  you  think  there  Mill  be 
found  any  regiment  in  Missouri  that  will  go 
South  to  subjugate  a  Southern  State.  Mr 
Gamble  says  it  is  annihilation  if  they 
do.  He  says  he  is  responsible  for  every 
letter  and  syllable  of  the  majority  report.  He 
says  if  that  is  attempted  it  is  annihilation.  I  ask 
you,  gentlemen,  in  that  view  of  the  subject,  are 
you  willing  to  stay  here  and  see  the  Southern 
States  subjugated?  Yet,  according  to  his  report, 
all  that  we  -ould  feel  authorized  to  do  would  be  to 
say  that  Ave  will  regret— regret !  Now,  I  tell  you 
that  whenever  that  thing  is  attempted,  you  will 
have  civil  war  in  Missouri;  and  I  tell  you  further, 
that  the  action  of  this  Convention  upon  the  propo- 
sition now  before  you,  will  tell  greatly  upon  the 


182 


Union  feeling  in  Missouiri.  How  do  we  stand 
here  now?  We  see  leading  papers  in  Missouri 
who  represent  the  Republican  interest  claiming 
that  this  Convention  reflects  their  sentiments. 
The  friends  of  Mr.  Lincoln  will  say  to  him.,  look 
at  the  Missouri  Convention;  they  there  intimate 
that  it  is  their  duty,  whenever  you  call  upon  them 
to  invade  a  Southern  State,  to  obey  the  summons ; 
they  have  voted  down  a  proposi  ion  sa}ingthat 
the  citizens  of  Missouri  will  not  do  it ;  take  cour- 
age, sir,  take  courage — Missouri  is  with  you. 

Gentlemen  of  the  Convention,  you  may  he 
able  to  dispose  of  that  feature  in  that  case.  You 
are  men  of  knowledge  and  intelligence,  many  of 
you  statesmen  and  lawers,  and  you  can  satisfy 
your  own  minds  about  this.  But  I  tell  you,  when- 
ever it  goes  out  to  the  people  of  Missouri  that  you 
are  not  opposed  to  coercion,  in  any  and  every 
form,  it  will  make  secessionists  by  the  hundred, 
and  I  as  a  Union  man  have  offered  this  Union 
resolution,  because  I  believe  it  to  be  the  best 
Union  project  that  has  been  suggested  by  this 
Convention.  I  believe  it  sincerely.  I  believe  that 
we  will  eventually  bring  back  our  brethren  of  the 
South,  in  spite  of  the  e§brts  of  their  leaders,  and 
I  am  now  for  saying  to  Mr.  Lincoln,  we  will  not 
aid  you  in  invading  and  subjugating  a  Southern 
State. 

Now,  Mr.  President,  I  desire  to  direct  your  at- 
tention for  a  moment  to  the  illustrations  that 
have  been  made  by  my  friends  from  Pike,  and 
Buchanan  and  St.  Louis.  They  talked  very  well 
against  my  amendment  until  they  attempted  to  il- 
lustrate my  position,  for  when  they  did  that,  in 
my  humble  judgment,  they  made  an  utter  fail- 
ure. My  friend  from  Buchanan  says,  suppose 
Georgia  should  conclude,  as  I  believe  she 
will,  eventually,  to  stay  in  the  Union — 
not  to  come  back,  mark  you,  for  I  do 
not  believe  it  requires  a  treaty  to  get  her 
back — I  do  not  believe  she  is  out— suppose  the 
people  of  Georgia  conclude  to  stay  in  the  old 
Union,  and  to  repeal  her  secession  ordinance; 
suppose,  then,  he  continues,  the  Southern  Con- 
federacy should  undertake  to  prevent  her;  in 
other  words,  should  force  her  out  of  the  Union, 
does  my  amendment  prevent  us,  then,  from  de- 
fending ourselves?  Is  there  anything  in  it 
against  the  right  of  self-defense?  And  right 
here,  in  order  to  understand  the  scope  and  object 
of  my  amendment,  you  must  look  at  the  first 
part  of  the  resolution — you  must  look  at  its  first 
words.  What  does  it  direct  your  attention  to  ? 
It  says  that,  believing  that  the  welfare  of  Mis- 
souri depends  upon  the  peaceful  settlement  of— 
what?  A  settlement  of  our  present  difficulties. 
What  does  that  amendment  pledge  the  action  of 
Missouri  to?  It  pledges  her  action  to  the  settle- 
ment of  our  difficulties.  The  fifth  resolution, 
which  was  penned  by  my  worthy  friend  before 
me,  refers  to  that  question. 


Mr.  Gamble.  I  desire,  if  the  gentleman  will 
permit,  me  to  interrupt  him,  to  explain  the  ex- 
tent of  my  authorship.  The  resolutions  were  not 
drawn  by  me.  The  report,  which  is  the  argu- 
ment in  support  of  the  resolutions,  is  drawn  by 
me. 

Mr.  Moss.  Well,  I  reckon  the  gentleman 
stands  on  that  resolution,  whether  he  wrote  it  or 
not. 

Mr.  Gamble.    Yes,  sir. 

Mr.  Moss.  Exactly.  I  am  referring  to  what 
the  resolution  says.  It  is  directed  to  the  settle- 
ment of  our  present  difficulties,  and  in  my 
amendment  to  that  resolution,  I  begin  by 
stating  that  the  peaceful  settlement  of  our 
present  difficulties  is  all  we  can  hope  for,  and  then 
express  the  belief  that  we  will  aid  neither  section 
in  making  war  upon  the  other.  That,  Mr.  Presi- 
dent, does  not  prevent  the  State  of  Missouri  from 
defending  herself  when  she  shall  be  invaaed.  A 
great  many  attempts  have  been  made  to  illus- 
trate this  point.  My  friend  from  St.  Louis  makes 
this  illustration.  He  says :  Suppose  this  military 
bill  should  pass  the  Legislature.  [I  should  say 
that  I  have  never  read  the  bill,  and  depend  for  in- 
formation as  to  its  powers  upon  the  gentleman,] 
and  the  Governor  should  declare  that  we  are  un- 
der a  military  government;  that  he  has  the  right 
to  call  out  his  soldiers  and  have  our  citizens  shot 
down  for  speaking  disrespectfully  of  him,  or 
committing  some  other  similar  offense.  Now,  is 
that  an  illustration  of  the  case?  I  ask  my  friend 
from  St.  Louis,  what  would  be  the  remedy?— 
Would  he  wait  to  apply  to  the  General  Gov- 
ernment for  power  to  put  down  the  Governor  of 
the  State  of  Missouri,  who  was  acting  in  obedi- 
ence to  the  law  passed  by  her  Legislasure? 

Mr.  Broadhead.  The  gentlemen  does  not 
seem  to  have  exactly  understood  my  position.  I 
took  this  position :  If  the  Governor  should  think 
proper  to  carry  Missouri  out  of  the  Union,  and 
use  the  military  force  given  under  this  bill  to 
carry  out  that  object,  he  would  be  committing  an 
act  of  treason  against  the  General  Government, 
and  we  should  have  the  right  to  call  that  Gov- 
ernment to  defend  us,  if  necessary. 

Mr.  Moss.  Well,  I  presume  that  whenever 
the  Legislature  of  Missouri  attempts  such  an  act 
of  usurpation  as  that,  and  whenever  the  Gov- 
ernor of  the  State  undertakes  to  carry  it  out,  the 
remedy  will  be  a  very  short  one.  It  will  not  be 
an  appeal  to  the  powers  of  the  Federal  Govern- 
ment, but  it  will  be  a  very  short  remedy.  It  will 
consist  of  ten  feet  of  grass  rope  and  a  good  oak 
limb.  I  presume  that  in  that  contingency,  that 
the  people  of  Missouri  will  undertake  to  take 
care  of  their  own  destiny,  without  appealing  to 
the  General  Government. 

I  can  see  no  case,  Mr.  President,  that  has  been 
cited  by  the  opponents  of  this  amendment,  that 
illustrates  the  point  in  any  way  whatever.    No 


183 


parallel,  no  case,  has  heen  cited,  that  will  demon- 
strate the  fallacy  of  the  position  I  occupy. 

Now,  in  conclusion,  I  would  just  say,  that,  as 
a  Union  man,  believing  that  our  salvation  de- 
pends upon  the  salvation  of  the  Union,  I  have 
presented  this  amendment,  and  have  advocated  it 
in  all  sincerity,  believing  it  was  a  peace  measure; 
and  if  it  shall  be  voted  down  by  this  Convention, 
I  will  submit;  will  then  vote  for  the  majority 
report,  because  I  believe  it  contains  a  declaration 
of  great  truth.  But  it  does  not  go  far  enough,  in 
my  opinion,  and  if  this  amendment  is  voted 
down,  I  shall  still  be  a  Union  man;  I  shall  go 
home  and  fight  the  battles  of  the  Union,  believ- 
ing that  our  hopes  are  anchored  in  the  Union. 
But,  Mr.  President,  I  shall  go  home  with  a  heavy 
heart ;  I  shall  go  home,  feeling  that  this  Conven- 
tion has  fai'ed  to  put  Missouri  in  an  attitude 
which  I  think  she  ought  to  occupy  in  regard  to 
our  present  difficulties. 

Mr.  Orr.  I  suppose  it  is  not  necessary  for  me, 
after  what  I  said  on  a  former  occasion,  to  say 
anything  more  in  regard  to  my  belief  of  the 
Union  proclivities  of  the  gentleman.  I  have  no 
doubt  but  he  is  as  good  a  Union  man  as  can  be 
found ;  but  he  has  advanced  one  argument  which 
I  think  proper  to  refute.  It  is  this :  That  some 
leading  Republican  papers  of  Missouri  take  the 
ground  that  this  Convention  agrees  with  them  ; 
and  if,  therefore,  we  do  not  do  something  here  to 
show  the  world  we  are  not  agreeing  with  the  Re- 
publican party,  we  will  build  up  secessionists  by 
the  thousand.  I  believe  the  Sacred  Book  in  some 
passage  says,  Do  you  believe  there  is  one  God? 
You  do.  Very  well ;  the  devils  also  believe  and 
tremble.  Now,  if  this  argument  is  worth  any- 
thing, because  the  devils  believe  in  a  God,  we 
must  believe  that  there  is  no  God — because  the 
Republican  party  are  to-day  for  the  Union  we 
must  needs  be  against  it.  I  hope  never  to  face 
my  wife  again,  if  I  am  not  able  to  say  that  I  am 
as  good  a  Union  man  as  any  Republican  in  this 
country. 

Mr.  Turner.  I  wish  to  ask,  sir,  what  will  be 
the  effect  of  the  adoption  of  this  substitute? 

The  Chair.  It  will  then  occupy  the  precise 
position  of  the  amendment  of  the  gentlemen  from 
Clay. 

Mr.  Turner.  I  had  intended  to  say  nothing 
until  the  question  should  come  up  on  the  final 
adoption  of  the  report  presented  by  the  majority; 
but  as  I  will  be  called  upon  to  decide  between  the 
substitute  and  the  amendment,  I  will  state  the 
reasons  which  will  govern  me  in  voting  for  the  sub- 
stitute. I  regard  that  amendment  as  putting  Mis- 
souri in  a  state  of  insubordination  to  the  General 
Government.  I  believe  that  either  as  a  State,  or 
in  our  individual  capacity,  we  have  no  legal  right 
to  say  that  we  will  not  furnish  men  or  money  to 
the  General  Government  when  it  demands  it  at 
our  hands.    It  will  be  sufficient  time  for  us  to  say 


what  we  will  do  when  such  a  contingency  does 
arise.  When  the  General  Government  calls  upon 
the  State  of  Missouri  for  men  and  money. — 
It  will  then  be  proper  for  us  to  determine 
whether  we  will  submit  to  the  call  of  the  Gov- 
ernment, made  in  a  legal  manner,  or  set  our- 
selves up  in  insubordination.  I  presume  there  is 
not  a  gentleman  upon  this  floor  who  will  contend 
that  the  General  Government  has  not  the  legal 
right  to  call  upon  the  States  for  men  and  money 
under  certain  contingencies.  I  say,  then,  that 
when  it  does  call,  it  will  be  time  enough  to  deter- 
mine our  action. 

I  regard  this  as  a  pestiferous  amendment  to 
the  resolution.  The  original  resolution  condemns 
coercion,  civil  war  and  strife  of  any  kind,  be- 
tween the  seceding  States  and  the  General  Gov- 
ernment. 

I  would  call  the  particular  attention  of  this 
Convention  to  the  wording  of  the  amendment. 
No  man  will  deny  that  the  General  Government 
has  not  the  legal  right  to  call  upon  Missouri  for 
men  and  money;  and  I  presume  no  man  will  have 
the  hardihood  to  contend  that  the  seceding 
States  have  the  same  legal  right.  Then,  sir,  I  think 
when  we  say  that  we  will  not  furnish  men  and 
money  to  the  seceding  States,  we  are  within  the 
scope  of  the  Constitution;  but  I  say,  furthermore, 
that  whenever  we  declare  we  will  not  furnish  men 
and  money  to  the  General  Government,  Ave  are 
going  outside  of  the  Constitution,  and  trampling 
it  under  our  feet.  Hence,  I  believe,  sir,  that  the 
adoption  of  the  amendment  would  be  calculated 
to  make  secessionists  at  the  North  and  secession- 
ists at  the  South.  Instead  of  bringing  together 
the  parts  now  separated,  in  feeling  and  in  sen- 
timent, we  would  widen  the  breach. 

So  far  as  the  substitute  is  concerned,  I  prefer  it 
to  the  amendment,  but  do  not  think  it  as  good  as 
the  original  resolution.  I  shall,  therefore,  after 
having  voted  for  the  substitute  and  against  the 
amendment,  vote  for  the  original  resolution  in 
preference  to  the  substitute. 

Sir,  the  terms  of  this  amendment  are  not  con- 
sistent with  the  position  we  occupy.  [Reads  the 
amendment.]  Now,  according  to  my  view,  we 
are  part  and  parcel,  and  a  very  important  part, 
of  the  General  Government  ourselves,  and  we  may 
well  say  that  we  will  not  furnish  men  and  money 
to  make  war  upon  ourselves.  But  when  we  are 
asked  to  go  further,  and  say  that  we  will  not 
furnish  men  and  money  to  the  General  Govern- 
ment that  has  given  us  protection,  and  to  whom 
we  look  for  protection  and  the  defense  of  our 
rights.  I  say  I  am  not  willing  to  vote  for  it,  Again, 
why  has  not  the  word  war  been  substituted 
in  the  amendment  for  coercion  ?  The  former  is 
plain  and  explicit,  the  latter  is  liable  to  various 
constructions.  If  the  word  coerce  had  but  one 
definition,  I  could  understand  it.  But  with  as 
many  definitions  and  as  many  significations  as 


184 


are  given  to  it  now  by  politicians,  I  say  I  cannot 
conscientiously  vote  for  the  amendment. 

I  think  I  have  shown,  Mr.  President,  that  we 
do  not  hold  the  same  legal  relations  to  the  se- 
ceding States  that  we  do  to  the  General  Govern- 
ment. If  we  did,  it  might  be  proper  to  say  that 
we  would  not  help  either  of  them.  As  it  is, 
Mr.  President,  if  the  country,  whose  flag  has  pro- 
tected me  from  my  infancy  to  the  present  time, 
should  call  upon  me  for  money,  if  I  owned  any, 
and  it  needs  my  services,  and  is  in  the  right  I, 
will  cheerfully  give  both. 

I  wish  to  notice  one  more  argument  and  I  am 
done.  The  gentleman  from  Clay  has  said  that  if 
this  amendment  was  voted  down,  the  men  of  the 
North  will  say  to  Mr.  Lincoln,  don't  you  see 
that  the  Missouri  Convention  favors  coercion? 
And  they  would  use  that  as  an  argument  to  co- 
erce the  seceding  State.  Now,  by  looking  at  the 
original  resolution,  no  fair-minded  man  can  come 
to  such  a  conclusion  as  that.  In  that  resolution  it 
is  clearly  laid  down  that  we  are  opposed  to  coer- 
cion, or  civil  war,  or  strife  of  any  kind,  between 
the  conflicting  sections  of  the  country,  and  we 
need  only  adopt  it  in  order  to  stand  pledged  to 
this  sentiment,  and  against  coercion. 

The  substitute  was  then  put  to  vote  and  lost. 

Mr.  Redd  offered  the  following  amendment  to 
the  amendment :  Amend  by  adding  to  the  end, 
after  the  word  "State/'  the  following  words: 
"While  any  hope  of  such  adjustment  remains." 

The  amendment  to  the  amendment  was  put  to 
Vote  and  lost. 

The  question  then  recurring  on  the  amedment 
of  Mr.  Moss,  it  was  rejected  by  the  following 
vote— ayes  30,  noes  61 : 

Ayes.— Bass,  Bast,  Brown,  Chenault,  Collier, 
Comingo,  Crawford,  Donnell,  Dunn,  Frayser, 
Flood,  Givens,  Gorin,  Harbin,  Hatcher,  Hill, 
Howell,  Hudgins,  Knott,  Matson,  Moss,  Norton, 
Ray,  Redd,  Sawyer,  Sayre,  Sheeley,  Walter,  Wat- 
kins,  Woodson— 30. 

Noes.— Allen,  Bartlett,  Birch,  Bogy,  Breckin- 
ridge, Broadhead,  Bridge,  Bush,  Calhoun,  Cayee, 
Douglass,  Drake,  Foster,  Gamble,  Gantt,  Gravel- 
ly, Hall  of  Buchanan,  Hall  of  Randolph,  Hender- 
son, Hendricks,  Hitchcock,Holmes,  Holt,  Hough, 
How,  Irwin,  Isbell,  Jackson,  Jamison,  Johnson, 
Kidd,  Leeper,  Linton,  Long,  Marmaduke,  Marvin, 
McClurg,  McCormack,  McDowell,  McFerran, 
Meyer,  Morrow,  Noell,  Orr,  Phillips,  Pomeroy, 
Rankin,  Ritchey,  Rowland,  Seott,  Shackelford  of 
Howard,  Shackelford  of  St.  Louis,  Smith  of  Linn, 
Smith  of  St.  Louis,  Tindall,  Turner,  Woolfolk, 
Wright,  Yanbuskirk,  Zimmerman,  Mr.  Presi- 
dent—61. 

Absent. — Messrs.  Doniphan,  Eitzen,  Maupin, 
Ross,  Stewart,  Welch,  and  Wilson. 

Sick.— Mr.  Pipkin. 


explanation  of  votes. 

Mr.  Birch.  In  explanation  of  my  vote  upon 
this  amendment,  and  as  a  reason  why,  in  the 
main,  I  shall  acquiesce  in  the  report  and  resolu- 
tions just  as  they  are,  it  is  but  necessary  to  refer 
to  the  action  of  the  Convention  upon  the  prelimi- 
nary institution  of  the  committee  which  drafted 
them,  to  wit :  the  Committee  on  Federal  Relations. 
To  the  rather  broad  and  indefinite  resolutions 
which  were  offered  by  the  distinguished  senior 
delegate  from  St.  Louis,  (afterwards  but  naturally 
and  properly  appointed  chairman  of  the  commit- 
tee) it  will  be  remembered  that  I  deemed  it  ap- 
propriate to  offer  a  substitute,  with  the  avowed 
purpose  of  testing  the  sense  of  the  Convention, 
and  to  go  to  the  committee,  in  the  nature  of  in- 
structions, as  to  the  scope  and  texture  of  their 
report,  namely :  "To  report  to  this  Convention 
such  an  exposition  and  address  as  shall  properly 
denote  the  views  and  opinions  of  those  who  look 
to  the  amicable  restoration  of  the  Federal  Union, 
upon  such  adjustments  of  the  past,  and  such 
guarantees  for  the  future,  as  shall  render  it  frater- 
nal, permanent  and  enduring."  Upon  an  amend- 
ment which  was  offered  by  the  delegate  from  Cole 
(the  Attorney  General)  for  the  purpose  of  giving 
the  necessary  completeness  to  the  substitute,  the 
Convention  divided,  with  three  majority  against 
me— thus  indicating  its  desire,  after  the  short 
explanatory  debate  between  the  delegate  from 
St.  Louis  and  myself,  that  the  committee  should 
not  be  instructed  according  to  the  spirit  and  pur- 
pose of  my  substitute.  Regarding  the  question, 
therefore,  as  thus  virtually  decided  against  me,  a 
respectful  deference  to  the  apparent  decision  of 
the  Convention,  and  a  becoming  respect  for  the 
committee  which  was  subsequently  appointed  to 
take  the  whole  subject  into  consideration,  have 
constituted  my  motives  for  not  participating  in 
the  debate  to  amend  or  alter  their  report.  As  a 
whole,  therefore,  (for  the  reasons  alluded  to,)  I 
have  found  myself  inclined  to  vote  for  the  resolu- 
tions of  the  committee — albeit  I  would  have  writ- 
ten them  somewhat  differently,  as  (I  may  remark 
again)  I  sought  to  have  them  written  differently. 
I  may  perhaps  be  pardoned  for  adding,  that  had 
I  written  them  myself,  both  the  report  and  the 
resolutions  should  have  recognized  at  least  the 
possibility  of  a  period  when  even  I  would  be 
willing  to  fight,  as  denoted  in  my  speech  last 
week,  but  which,  notwithstanding  the  able  ex- 
position of  my  colleague,  (Mr.  Dunn,)  I 
still  understand  the  amendment  as  pledg- 
ing me  not  to  do.  As,  therefore,  the  voice 
of  the  State  is  emphatically  expressed  in  the 
resolution  of  the  committee  against  armed  inter- 
vention of  any  kind ;  and  as  that  and  other  reso- 
lutions of  the  committee  embody  substantially 
the  language  and  spirit  of  the  resolutions  of  the 
constituency  whom  I  have  the  honor,  in  part,  to 
represent :  and  as  the  succeeding  resolutions  of 


185 


the  committee  very  properly  provide  for  our  re- 
assemblage  in  the  event  of  exigencies  not  now 
anticipated,  I  shall  content  myself  with  such  a 
concurrence  in  the  general  views  of  the  commit- 
tee, as  will  prevent  me  from  seeking  either  to  mar 
the  symmetry  of  their  reporter  the  more  satisfac- 
tory symmetry,  and  significance  of  their  resolu- 
tions.   I  therefore  vote  in  the  negative. 

Mr.  Sol.  Smith.  This  Convention  having 
been  called  "to  consider  the  existing  relations 
between  the  Government  of  the  United  States, 
the  people  and  Government  of  the  different  States, 
and  the  Government  and  people  of  the  State  of 
Missouri,"  I  do  not  believe  Ave  are  called  upon  to 
pledge  the  State  as  to  its  action  in  any  contin- 
gency which  may  arise  in  future.  We  are  now 
witnessing— I  might  say  experiencing— the  ef- 
fects of  a  pledge  made  twelve  years  ago  by  our 
Legislature;  I  refer  to  the  celebrated  Jackson  res- 
olutions, which  have  been  recently  revived  and 
adopted  as  a  platform  on  which  the  two  branch- 
es of  the  Democracy  have  united  at  Jefferson 
City;  and  I  am  unwilling  by,  any  vote  of  mine, 
to  indorse  that  or  any  other  pledge  that  may  re- 
quire the  people  of  Missouri,  under  any  circum- 
stances, to  resist  the  Government  in  the  perform- 
ance of  its  legitimate  duties.  Mr.  President,  I 
am  against  secession — I  am  against  coercion; 
and  as  my  sentiments  on  those  two  subjects  are 
satisfactorily  expressed  in  the  first  and  fifth  reso- 
lutions reported  by  your  Committee,  I  shall  vote 
against  the  amendment. 

Mr.  Woolfolk.  As  I  have  not  engaged  in  the 
debate,  I  desire  to  make  a  few  remarks  in  ex- 
planation of  my  vote.  I  shall  vote  against  the 
amendment,  not  because  I  favor  coercion,  but 
because  I  am  unalterably  opposed  to  the  doctrine 
of  coercion.  The  amendment,  in  my  opinion, 
contemplates  coercion  by  the  Federal  Govern- 
ment, when  that  Government  has  as  yet  indica- 
ted no  such  intention.  It  even  invites  coercion 
by  pledging  Missouri  to  neutrality,  in  case  it  is 
attempted.  The  original  resolution  will  be  more 
potent  to  prevent  coercion  than  the  amendment. 
Hear  its  concluding  clause :  "We  therefore  ear- 
nestly entreat,  as  well  the  Federal  Government 
as  the  seceding  States,  to  withhold  and  stay  the 
arm  of  military  power,  and,  on  no  pretense 
w hatever,  biing  upon  the  nation  the  horrors  of 
civil  war."  We  here,  sir,  plainly  declare  that  in 
no  event  will  we  sanction  the  use  of  military  power 
by  the  Federal  Government — not  under  the  pre- 
tense of  enforcing  the  laws  or  "the  pretense  of" 
sustaining  and  preserving  the  Union.  We  plainly 
recognize  by  this  resolution,  sir,  that  the  Union  is 
not  to  be  preserved  by  the  sword.  But  the  amend- 
ment offered  by  the  gentleman  from  Clay  will,  if 
adopted  weaken  Missouri's  influence  for  good 
with  all  portions  of  the  Union.  It  will  lessen  her 
influence  with  the  loyal  States,  because  it  com- 
mits    her     to     nullification.     It    will    alienate 


from  her  those  States  that  are  not  loyal  be- 
cause in  the  event  of  war  it  commits  her  to  neu- 
trality. Missouri  should  lift  her  voice  against 
coercion  and  in  favor  of  peace— but  beyond  that 
she  should  not  look.  If  coercion  should  be  at- 
tempted—if civil  war  should  ensue,  it  will  be 
time  then,  with  all  the  facts  before  us,  for  Mis- 
souri to  take  her  position.  Leave  this  question 
as  one  of  the  secrets  of  the  great  future,  feeling 
that  if  the  issue  is  ever  presented,  Missouri  will 
meet  it  as  she  should— that  she  will  act  wisely 
and  well.  She  will  consult  her  duty,  her  honor 
and  interest,  and  if  circumstances  shall  require 
that  her  sword  shall  be  drawn  from  its  scabbard, 
I  feel  well  assured,  sir,  that  she  will  fearlessly 
fling  it  into  the  scale  of  justice. 

Mr.  Noell.  I  shall  vote  "  No"  on  this  propo- 
sition, not  because  I  am  in  favor  of  coercion,  but 
because  I  think  the  original  resolution  preferable 
in  its  wording  and  spirit.  I  am  opposed  to  coer- 
cion in  any  manner,  shape  or  form.  I  have  not 
said  any  thing  in  the  debate  which  is  progressing, 
from  the  fact  that  I  did  not  think  that  I  could  say 
any  thing  of  importance  in  addition  to  what  has 
been  said  by  other  members.  I  do  not  think  it  is 
right  to  pledge  Missouri  to  any  particular  course. 
I  believe  that  the  original  resolution  pledges  the 
State  so  far  as  necessary,  and  that  this  thing  will 
work  out  all  right.  I  think  Missouri  always  will 
be  opposed  to  coercion,  and  I  know  that,  so  far  as 
the  people  of  Southwest  Missouri  are  concerned, 
they  are  bitterly  opposed  to  it. 

CONCLUSION  OF  PROCEEDINGS. 

Mr.  Wright.  I  would  move  that  we  adopt 
the  first  resolution  reported  by  the  majority  of 
the  committee. 

The  Chair.  Your  motion  is  to  take  those 
resolutions  up  in  their  regular  order? 

Mr.  Wright.  Yes,  sir;  and  I  move  that  the 
first  resolution  be  adopted. 

Mr.  Gamble.  If  the  gentleman  will  yield  the 
floor,  I  move  that  the  House  now  adjourn. 

Mr.  Wright.  I  will  yield  the  floor  on  condi- 
tion that  I  am  entitled  to  it  on  the  re-assembling 
of  the  Convention. 

The  Chair.    That  is  the  understanding. 

Mr.  Sheeley.  I  desire  the  gentleman  from 
St.  Louis  to  withdraw  his  motion  for  one  mo- 
ment. A  communication  was  made  to  this  Con- 
vention, a  day  or  two  ago,  by  the  Directors  of  the 
Agricultural  and  Mechanical  Association,  offer- 
ing to  present  to  each  member  a  copy  of  their 
Fifth  Annual  Report,  if  acceptable.  I  have  a  re- 
solution accepting  the  offer,  and  tendering  the 
thanks  of  this  Convention  for  it. 

Mr.  Crawford.  I  believe  that  it  is  generally 
the  custom  not  to  thank  anybody  unless  there 
has  been  something  to  thank  for.  We  are  called 
upon  in  that  resolution  to  thank  for  books  re- 
ceived, and  yet  I  have  not  been  able  to  discover 


186 


any  of  those  books  around  me.  I  think  we 
should  each  first  get  a  copy  before  we  undertake 
to  pass  a  vote  of  thanks.     [Laughter.] 

The  Chair.  The  books  are  with  the  Secretary, 
and  it  is  understood  that  he  will  attend  to  their 
distribution. 

The  resolution  of  Mr.  Sheelet  was  then 
adopted. 

The  Convention  thereupon  adjourned. 


FIFTEENTH   DAY. 

St.  Louis,  March  18th,  1861. 

Met  at  10  A.  M. 

Mr.  President  in  the  Chair. 

Prayer  by  the  Chaplain. 

Mr.  Doniphan  rose  to  state  that  he  had  been 
unwell  on  last  Saturday,  and  wished  to  record  his 
vote  in  favor  of  the  amendment  of  Mr.  Moss. 

Mr.  Wright.  Mr.  President,  the  first  resolu- 
tion reported  by  the  majority  of  the  committee 
declares  that  at  present  "there  is  no  adequate  cause 
to  impel  Missouri  to  dissolve  her  connection  with 
the  Federal  Union,  but  on  the  contrary  we  will 
labor  for  such  an  adjustment  of  existing  difficul- 
ties as  will  secure  the  peace,  as  well  as  the  rights 
and  equality  of  all  the  States."  This  resolution, 
Mr.  President,  involves  a  wide  and  important  in- 
quiry. I  was  astonished  to  hear  from  some  mem- 
bers in  this  body,  that  it  was  not  profitable  under 
our  present  exigencies,  to  determine  the  nature 
and  character  of  the  Government  under  which 
we  live— that  all  theories  touching  the  form  and 
nature  of  government,  are  not  practical  in  this 
e  xigency,  and  that  all  mind  or  genius  spent  in 
that  direction  is  a  waste  of  intellect.  If  I  thought 
so,  Mr.  President,  I  should  not  rise  in  this  body  to 
make  a  speech  at  all.  But  on  the  contrary,  I  hold, 
sir,  that  this  resolution  makes  such  an  inquiry  as 
that,  the  most  pertinent  of  all  interrogatories:  how 
can  Ave  determine  whether  we  ought  to  break  it 
up  or  hold  out,  unless  we  appreciate  its  nature. 
Is  it  a  military  government?  Is  it  a  consolidated 
government?  Is  it  a  national  government? 
Is  it  any  government  at  all?  Or  is  it  a  thing 
that  can  be  dissolved  at  the  whim  and 
caprice  and  pleasure  of  any  of  the  ac- 
tual or  supposed  parties  to  it.  This  birthright  of 
an  American  citizen,  what  is  it,  Mr.  President?  Is 
it  an  estate  at  all?  We— you  and  I,  sir— have  been 
proud  of  it  from  the  first  momont  that  we  had 
conscious  thought  on  the  question  of  liberty.  It 
gratified  us  in  our  youth  ?  And  it  has  been  the  ad- 
miration of  our  manhood.  What  is  this  birth- 
right of  an  American  citizen,  not  the  question  of 
your  right  to  live  in  Missouri  as  your  honv%  or  in 
Virginia  or  Tennessee,  but  the  right  to  hold  that 
other,  and  that  broader,  and  that  larger  title,  the 


title  to  be  an  American  citizen,  whose  home  and 
country  is  not  the  State  in  which  he  lives,  but  who 
can  rightfully  and  proudly  claim  that  his  emph*e 
stretches  to  the  widest  and  utmost  verge  of  our 
boundary — bounded  by  two  oceans — rearming  to 
the  cold  regions  of  the  North,  and  going  South  to 
the  semi-tropical  clime. 

Now,  sir,  the  inquiry  is  a  most  pertinent  one. 
Is  it  an  estate  at  all?  If  an  estate,  what  sort  of 
an  estate  ?  Is  it  a  fee  simple  ?  Is  it  what  we  law- 
yers call  a  free  hold  or  life  estate,  or  is  it  a  term 
of  years, — long  or  short?  Or  is  it  a  tenan- 
cy at  will?  A  possession  that  we  must  give  up 
upon  notice  to  quit,  served  upon  us  by  another? 
These  are  all  pertinent  inquiries,  necessary  to  the 
solution  of  our  wisdom  or  our  folly  in  adoping 
or  rejecting  the  resolution  that  comes  first  from 
the  majority  of  the  Committee.  It  is  ju*t  as 
important  that  Ave  should  understand 
the  nature  and  character  of  our  Govern- 
ment, to  determine  its  value,  as  that  avc  should  as- 
certain the  source  and  nature  of  those  ills  of 
Avhich  Ave  complain  in  order  to  determine  their 
actual  force  and  importance  upon  our  minds.  So 
that  it  is  manifest  upon  the  very  face  of  the  reso- 
lution that  the  most  important  and  grave  inqui- 
ries connect  themselves  necessarily  Avith  it,  if  we 
are  to  use  mind  and  reason  at  all,  in  solving  the 
inquiry,  shall  it  pass  or  shall  it  be  rejected  ? 

Entertaining  this  view,  I  shall  try  to  occupy  the 
time  of  this  body  Avith  some  remarks  upon  the 
nature  of  our  GoA-ernment.  And  first,  is  it  a 
military  government?  Does  its  poAArer  lie  in  the 
sword  ?  Is  its  force  the  force  of  the  bayonet  ?  Is 
its  strength  resident  only  in  martial  phalanx,  and 
to  be  felt  in  the  power  and  clash  of  arms  ?  Sir, 
it  is  no  military  government.  If  it  were  I  should 
not  loA-e  it.  If  it  Avere,  you,  sir,  avouM  never 
have  been  proud  of  it,  nor  I.  It  Avould  have  had 
no  hold  upon  the  affection  of  the  American  peo- 
ple, if  it  had  been  a  military  government.  That 
is  a  despotism.  It  is  the  Avcakest  poAver  in  the 
AVtfrld,  and  yet  the  most  destruetiA-e.  This  Gov- 
ernment is  a  Government  Avho^e  strength  lies  in 
its  justice,  and  its  great  power  is  the  greatest  poAver 
of  the  Avorld — it  is  moral  power,  it  is  intellectual 
poicer,  it  is  a  poAver  that  addresses  itself  not  to 
the  nerves,  or  flesh,  or  bones  and  muscle  of  men, 
but  makes  its  appeal  to  the  calm,  reasoning,  and 
God-like,  lofty,  noble  qualities  Avith  Avhich  man 
has  been  endoAvod  by  his  Maker. 

Is  it  a  consolidated  gOA-ernment?  No,  it  is  not 
that.  For  consolidation  itself  Avould  concentrate 
poAver  so  as  to  be  destructive.  It  is  no  military 
government,  and  it  is  no  consolidated  goA-ern- 
ment.  What,  then,  is  the  character  of  this  gov- 
ernment? It  is  a  government  in  Avhich  the  chief 
distinguishing  characteristic  is  the  distribution  of 
poAver  into  many  hands,  so  that  it  shall  be  hurt- 
ful nowhere  and  a  blessing  everywhere — poAA-er 
distributed  first  to  the  General  Government,  poAver 


187 


distributed  next  to  the  States,  and  power  not  dis- 
tributed at  all,  bur  resident  in  the  great  funda- 
mental source  of  power,  the  people  of  these  Uni- 
ted States. 

But  what  is  the  chain  that  binds  us  together? 
Is  it  to  be  sundered  at  option,  constitutional- 
ly, peaceably,  by  any  one  of  the  parties  that 
made  it?  Is  it  what  these  chemists  call  the  ar- 
g'dlo  calclte,  that  decomposes  and  dissolves  by 
mere  exposure  to  the  atmosphere,  without  any 
chemical  action?  Can  I  go  to  bed  one  night, 
thanking  God,  the  Father  above,  for  the  blessings 
which  he  has  scattered  broadcast  over  my  life, 
and  among  the  praises  shall  thank  him  for  the 
birthright  of  an  American  citizen;  shall  I  sleep  the 
sweet  sleep  of  a  freeman,  under  the  idea  that  I  am 
secured  hy  the  laws  and  institutions  of  my  coun- 
try, by  a  power  stronger  than  that  which  sur- 
rounds a  crowned  head  in  his  armed  myrmidons; 
and  wake  up  to  fresh  life  in  the  morning  and 
come  down  the  street  and  be  told  on  its  corners 
that  this  Union  is  dissolved — that  I  am  no  longer 
an  American  citizen!  Why?  Because  South 
Carolina  has  dissolved  it.  And  if  she  has  not, 
Florida  did  it — and  if  any  aid  were  necesa- 
ry  in  the  work,  Georgia  furnished  it,  and  the  sup- 
plemental finishing  of  this  destruction  was  com- 
pleted by  by  the  joint  labors  of  Mississippi,  Louis- 
iana and  Texas.  Is  that  so?  Is  this  a  govern- 
ment? Am  I  now  an  American  citizen?  Who 
can  believe  that  it  is  so?  or,  if  it  be  so,  I  should 
not  cherish  the  title,  for  it  would  be  solvable  at 
the  mere  Avill  of  another. 

But,  coming  nearer  home,  can  the  State  of  Mis- 
souri rob  me  of  my  birth-right  through  the  exer- 
cise of  a  Constitutional  power,  called  the  right  of 
secession?  '  Can  she  rob  me  of  my  right  to  fight 
for  my  Government  in  her  midst,  if  I  think  the 
Government  right  and  rebellion  wrong?  Can  she 
tear  from  me  the  sacred  right  of  revolution,  which, 
thouzh  a  dreaded  and  terrible  and  sublime  pow- 
er upon  the  earth,  under  the  limitations  which  our 
British  ancestors  and  our  own  fathers  have 
placed  upon  it,  is  one  of  the  great  conservative 
powers  of  this  earth— the  friend  of  liberty  and 
not  its  oppressor?  I  have  always  known  that 
revolution  might  destroy  my  title  of  an  Amer- 
ican citizen,  but  I  have  always  known 
likewise  that  the  red  hand  of  revolution  could 
never  accomplish  that  until  my  birth-right  was 
valueless,  and  revolution  came  up  to  me  and  said 
I  strike  for  your  liberty  and  not  against  it. 

In  these  days  and  this  wild  reign,  not  of  terror 
I  will  not  say  of  terroi — I  will  drop 
the  t  —  in  this  wild  reign  of  error, 
it  is  very  fit  that  we  discuss  this  question 
of  right,  the  constitutional  right  of  a  State  to  dis- 
solve this  Union.  From  what  sources  do  those 
who  are  for  this  proposition  derive  the  power? — 
First  it  is  said  that  the  States  who  made  it  were 
independent,  sovereign  States.    Well.    Secondly, 


that  they  have  reserved  powers  to  themselves. 
Grant  it,  also.  Thirdly,  that  being  sovereign  and 
independent  States,  they  can  resume  their  sover- 
eignty whenever  they  choose.  So  that,  according 
to  this  argument,  the  right  of  peaceable,  consti- 
tutional secession,  springs  out  of  the  nature  of 
our  Government,  out  of  the  character  of  the  par- 
tics  who  formed  it,  and  the  inherent,  inalienable 
and  untransferable  power  of  sovereignty  which 
originally  belonged  to  the  parties  who  entered 
into  this  compact 

Now  let  us  practically  test  this  thing  by  the 
Constitution  itself.  I  would  say  to  the  gentle- 
man from  Marion,  (Mr.  Re  Id,)  that  his  ordinari- 
ly clear  and  logical  mind,  has  been  lost  in  the 
transcendentalism  of  secession  metaphysics.  I 
would  ask  him  if  he  thought  that  when  this  Gov- 
ernment bought  Florida,  not  for  the  value 
of  its  soil,  not  for  anything  but  a 
military  reason,  in  order  that  this 
Government  might  hold  the  key  to  the  Gulf  of 
Mexico — I  will  ask  him  whether,  if  she  was  in 
her  territorial  form,  she  could  take  the  step  she 
has  taken?  I  imagine  that  the  intellect  and  can- 
dor of  the  gentleman  would  answer  no.  Why? 
Because,  he  would  say,  she  is  not  a  sovereign — 
she  is  a  mere  dependency;  her  people  live  by  such 
organic  acts  as  the  Government  of  the  United 
States  may  think  proper  to  spread  over  her  Ter- 
ritory;  she  is  a  pigmy  now,  and  there  is  no  such 
thing  as  a  power  resident  in  her  to  break  up  this 
Government — but  by  and  by  she  will  be  a  giant, 
and  when  she  is  clothed  with  this  immaculate 
power  of  sovereignty,  why,  of  course,  she  may  go 
back  and  occupy  the  identical  position  of  Vir- 
ginia on  the  day  that  she  helped  to  make  this 
Government,  and  may  resume  the  inherent  powers 
with  which  she  is  now  clothed,  and  the  moment 
she  takes  her  place  fully,  freely  and  perfectly  as  a 
State  in  this  Union,  may  then  claim  it  as  an  inde- 
pendent and  constitutional  right  to  break  it  up. 

I  have  read  the  speech  which  seems  to  have 
furnished  the  staple  for  some  of  the  arguments  in 
the  Convention,  (the  speech  of  Mr.  Benjamin,  of 
Louisiana,)  a  speech  which  I  find  circulated  broad- 
cast throughout  this  land,  and  it  has  fallen  with 
tremendous  power  on  our  Capitol  and  the  men  in 
it,  and  especially  those  who  rule  in  it.  It  says : 
"Read,  Mis^ourians!  and  be  prepared  to  defend 
your  rights  by  argument  as  well  as  by  arms,  the 
great  speech  of  Hon.  J.  P.  Benjamin."  Mr.  Ben- 
jamin's speech  itself  is  nothing  more  than  a  re- 
hash of  old  arguments  furished  in  the  troubles 
of  1833. 

He  has  not  advanced  one  new  idea  in  that  ar- 
gument, but  he  has  revamped  and  ressurectcd 
ideas  in  favor  of  this  heresy,  and  spread  them 
abroad,  and  they  have  obtained  currency  through 
the  epidemic  passions  of  the  hour.  Because  the 
States  were  sovereign  and  had  reserved  rights, 
and  especially  because,  as  the  gentleman  said, 


188 


they  delegated  power  and  did  did  not  grant  any ; 
therefore,  the  resumption  of  this  power  is  a  logi- 
cal inference,  and  each  State  that  entered  into 
this  Union  at  the  very  moment  of  making  it  re- 
served to  itself  the  power  to  break  it  when  she 
thought  proper.  It  is  true  Mr.  Benjamin  says 
that  she  has  ouly  the  right  to  do  it  in  a  clear  and 
palpable  case  of  violation  of  the  Constitution. 

Mr.  Redd.  I  desire  to  say  that  I  do  not  know 
what  Mr.  Benjamin's  position  is,  but  my  position 
is  that  by  the  law  of  nations,  when  a  compact  is 
entered  into  each  Government  has  the  right  to 
dissolve  its  connection  with  that  Government 
when  that  compact  is  violated  by  the  one  party — 
that  the  injured  party  has  the  right  to  declare  the 
compact,  in  so  far  as  that  party  is  concerned, 
broken. 

Mr.  Wright.  That  is  precisely  Mr.  Benja- 
min's position,  that  by  the  law  of  nations  and  by 
the  hand  of  sovereignty,  and  by  the  fact  that  the 
powers  were  delegated  and  not  surrendered, 
a  State  can  dissolve  her  connections  with  the 
General  Government  at  pleasure;  but,  he  says, 
a  State  can  dissolve  the  Union  by  the  exer- 
cise of  its  Constitutional  right,  and  is  not 
driven  to  the  necessity  of  revolution  in  a  clear 
and  palpable  case  of  violation  of  the  Constitu- 
tion. The  trouble  about  that  argument  is— 
who  is  to  judge  whether  it  is  palpable  or  not. 
Where  is  the  power  to  determine?  If  a 
State  can  do  it,  how  do  you  impose  the 
limitation  upon  the  power.  The  logical  mind  of 
the  gentleman  from  Marion  must  see  at  a  glance, 
that  the  power  Constitutionally  to  secede  from 
this  Union,  under  any  limitations— which  are  lim- 
itations only  from  the  power  that  secedes,  is  a 
power  without  any  limitations  at  all.  Mr.  Benja- 
min in  his  speech,  quoting  the  provisions  of 
our  Constitution,  italicises,  as  my  friend 
from  Marion  did,  the  word  delegated,  the 
point  upon  which  the  whole  thing  hangs, 
according  to  my  friend  from  Marion.  If 
it  had  been  "granted,"  or  "surrendered," 
it  would  have  been  different— but  it  is  only  the 
'•delegation"  of  the  power.  Now  Mr.  Benjamin 
had  to  read  in  the  context  that  whole  proposi- 
tion of  the  Constitution,  and  it  is  short,  and  I  ask 
the  gentleman  from  Marion,  or  any  other  gentle- 
man about  whose  mind  hang  the  cobwebs  which 
fetter  its  reason— and  I  would  almost  say  deffer- 
entially  and  respectfully,  fetter  its  patriotism— I 
ask  his  attention  to  the  whole  of  this  provision  of 
the  Constitution.  It  reads  "the  powers  not  dele- 
gated by  the  States,  nor  prohibited  to  the  States, 
are  reserved  to  the  States  themselves,  or  the  peo- 
ple." What  is  his  error?  In  the  first  place 
is  a  delegated  power  reserved?  A  power 
delegated.  Is  that  reserved?  Is  a  prohibited 
power  reserved  ?  Every  man  knows  that  no  re- 
served power  can  take  away  a  granted  one,  and 
it  is  equally  manifest  that  no  reservation  can  take 


away  a  power  expressly  prohibited.  So  that  a 
reservation  is  what?  A  reservation  is  what  is 
left  after  taking  out  the  powers  delegated,  and 
the  powers  prohibited  to  the  States,  and  then  the 
residuum  is  the  reservation,  and  that  residuum 
is  distributed  in  some  cases  to  the  States,  and 
in  some  cases  to  the  people. 

Mr.  President,  the  framers  of  the  Constitu- 
tion were  men  who  matched  words  well  to 
thoughts;  they  understood  the  character  of  the 
government  they  were  making,  and  this,  their 
sentence  in  the  fundamental  law,  throws  a  flood 
of  light  upon  the  whole  instrument.  It  is  the 
key  by  which  you  unlock  all  its  mysteries.  It  pre- 
sents the  only  government  on  earth  with  such  a 
distribution  of  power.  In  other  words,  it  is  the 
invention  of  the  American  mind,  brought  into 
living  action  by  a  great  crisis,  in  so  far  as  Ave  can 
l©ok  upon  their  action  as  an  independent  and 
spontaneous  movement  of  the  human  mind.  I 
do  not  belieAre  we  say  the  whole  truth  when  we 
say  it  was  the  genius  of  America;  it  was  the  pro- 
found sagacity  of  our  fathers,  met  in  council,  that 
made  that  instrument.  I  believe  as  firmly  as  I 
stand  before  you  this  day,  that  they  were  helped 
to  it,  that  there  was  a  Providence  that  shaped 
their  work,  the  same  Providence  which 
raised  up  Washington,  and  which  discovered  this 
continent  at  the  right  hour  and  time — the  same 
Providence  which  not  only  went  with  us  to  battle 
but  sat  by  us  in  council,  and  stilled  the  waves  of 
passion  which  might  rise  in  that  body,  and  at 
last  produced  such  a  result  as  the  world  has 
never  seen.  The  people,  the  source  of  power — 
not  the  divine  right  of  kings — distributing  the 
power  in  the  first  place  to  the  States,  and  reserv- 
ing to  themselves  the  powers  which  they  did  not 
grant,  then  distributing  powers  affirmatively  to 
the  Federal  Government— next  prohibiting  power 
to  the  States  and  ever  so  distributing  it,  as  to 
make  power  beneficial  everywhere,  and  hurtful  no- 
where. That  is  by  distributing  power  in  no  such 
wise  as  to  make  any  sovereign  anywhere.  They 
held  the  residuum  in  their  own  hands.  We  talk 
familiarly  about  the  sovereign  State  of  Missouri; 
the  sovereign  State  of  South  Carolina;  the  sov- 
ereign State  of  Louisiana;  the  sovereign  States 
of  Texas  and  Florida.  I  deny  it.  There  is  not  a  ro  v- 
ing  tribe  of  Indians  between  this  and  the  smooth 
sea,  nor  a  band  of  Bedouins  in  the  Arabian  des- 
ert, that,  in  the  sense  of  publicists  and  jurists, 
are  not  more  sovereign  than  any  State  in  this 
Union.  Mr.  Benjamin  says — that  a  sovereign 
State,  according  to  his  notion,  that  a  government 
itself,  under  whatever  form  soever,  without  de- 
pendence on  any  foreign  power,  is  a  sovereign 
State.  Let  me  suppose  a  case.  These  publi- 
cists have  never  written  about  our  plan 
of  government.  The  misery  of  this  word 
sovereignty  is  this,  that  lawyers  and  states- 
men read  the  books  of  Europe— Grotius,  Puffen- 


189 


dorff,  Vattel— and  they  all  talk  about  govern- 
ments unlike  our  own  —  and  we  get  the 
idea  of  sovereignty  from  them,  and  we 
attempt  to  apply  it  for  want  of  better  terms, 
to  our  own  Government.  But  let  me  ask 
the  gentleman  from  Marion,  (Mr.  R?dd,)  and  I 
select  him  because  I  respect  his  intellect,  because 
I  know  he  is  blest  with  large  powers  from  above, 
aud  because,  therefore,  I  have  more  interest  in 
his  error  than  if  he  were  a  stranger.  Suppose 
there  had  arisen  up  in  Europe  a  government  con- 
templated by  Vattel,  Grotius  and  PuffendorfF  and 
other  publicists  of  the  world,  there  is  no  place  to 
locate  it  because  there  is  no  such  government  in 
Europe.  But,suppose  there  were  one  in  Europe  and 
having  no  power  to  make  war  or  to  conclude 
peace— no  right  to  coin  money,  nor  any  authority 
to  regulate  commerce.  Suppose  it  could  not 
grant  letters  of  marque  and  reprisal,  that  it  could 
not  send  any  Ambassador  to  any  court  in  the 
world,  that  it  could  not  collect  tonnage  duties 
without  the  lawful  consent  of  another  govern- 
ment, and  that  after  obtaining  consent  it  would 
have  to  take  the  proceeds  and  put  them  in  the 
Treasury  of  that  other  government.  Suppose,  in 
addition  to  that,  every  citizen  in  that  country,  or 
every  subject,  was  bound  by  an  oath  of  allegiance 
to  another  government,  a  superior  and  para- 
mount allegiance,  and  suppose  every  one  of  its  of- 
ficers before  they  could  act  in  that  state,  would 
have  to  swear  to  support  that  other  government, 
and  swear  that  when  a  conflict  took  place  be- 
tween the  powers  of  that  other  govern- 
ment and  its  own,  that  it  should 
side  with  a  foreign  power.  Suppose  it  was 
a  State  that  could  not  use  uniform  weights 
and  measures;  could  not  pass  any  bill  of  attain- 
der. Would  Vattel  say  that  was  a  sovereign  na- 
tion or  an  independent  nation ?  I  judge  not. — 
Now,  this  imaginary  nation  I  have  spoken  of  in 
the  old  world,  is  identical  with  the  nature  of 
every  State  of  this  Union  under  the  Federal 
Constitution.  It  would  be  a  power  incapable 
of  maintaining  itself  in  a  conflict  with  na- 
tions. Would  she  be  a  sovereign  State  in  any 
sense,  and  have  the  right  of  international  law? 
She  would  not,  but  yet  she  would  have  pow- 
er. Well,  let  us  cast  our  eyes  to  another  govern- 
ment-. Suppose  there  were  a  government  in  Eu- 
rope that  could  declare  war  and  conclude  peace; 
that  could  send  ambassadors  to  a  foreign  court; 
that  could  coin  money;  that  could  estab- 
lish a  standard  of  weights  and  measures,  and 
emit  bills  of  credit,  that  could  establish  post- 
roads,  although  it  would  be  doubtful  whether 
it  could  make  any  other  road  having  no  power  of 
eminent  domain.  Suppose  it  were  a  government 
that  had  the  power  of  taxation — that  could  levy 
duties  on  imports  and  excises — and  suppose  it 
was  a  government  that  could  not  settle  a  landed 
estate—not  having  jurisdiction  of  the  soil — that  it 


could  not  determine  an  action  of  ejectment — or 
could  not  pass  any  statutes  of  distribution,  what 
would  they  say  of  that  government?  I  am  de- 
scribing the  Constitution  of  the  United  States  and 
the  Federal  Government.  What  would  these 
publicists  say  of  that  sort  of  government  ?  They 
would  say  this :  It  is  limited  in  the  most  impor- 
tant matters — it  has  no  municipal  power  and  no 
police  power.  They  would  say  of  such  a  govern- 
ment: It  is  anomalous  —  it  comes  up 
to  no  standard  of  sovereignty  in  the 
minds  of  publicists.  In  the  sense  of 
the  word  the  Federal  Government  itself  is  not 
a  sovereign  government.  It  is  supreme  in  its 
sphere  of  action,  but  then  its  sphere  of  action  is 
limited,  and  an  obstruction  upon  sovereignty. 
But  are  these  governments  less  valuable,  less  effi- 
cacious as  instruments  of  good  and  preservers 
and  bulwarks,  because  shorn  of  this  sovereignty. 
No,  their  precise  value  lies  in  the  very  difficulties 
of  obstruction.  Have  we  got  no  sovereignty  any- 
where in  this  country,  will  say  the  gentleman 
from  Marion.  Strictly  speaking,  no.  The  peo- 
ple are  the  source  of  power,  and  the  people  in  it 
are  the  government,  and  are  not  an  Athenian  De- 
mocracy or  mob.  What  can  the  people  do?  The 
people  of  America,  the  source  and  original 
fountain  of  an  eternal  living  power— Avhat 
can  they  do?  Can  they  act  as  sovereign- 
collect  taxes  or  make  war  —  conclude  peace 
or  pass  laws?  No,  they  cannot  do  that.  The 
sovereign  people  of  the  State  of  Missouri 
can  change  our  form  of  government  as  it  stands. 
provided  they  take  a  republican  form,  and  provi- 
ded they  do  not  hurt  the  Constitution  of  the  Uni- 
ted States.  But,  the  people  cannot  lew  taxes — 
they  cannot  raise  armies — they  cannot  make  laws ; 
the  source  of  their  power  speaks  only  through  a 
legitimate  superstructure  so  beautifully  erected  as 
to  perform  all  its  appropriate  functions  in  a 
healthy  and  becoming  manner.  It  flourishes,  be- 
cause sovereignty  in  this  sense  does  not  exist.  It 
is  a  grand  invention  of  the  American  mind, 
calculated  to  make  liberty  more  secure. 
Away,  then,  with  this  sentiment  of  the  publi- 
cists; away  with  this  doctrine  of  secession 
that  springs  from  the  idea  that  a  State  can 
resume  its  sovereignty,  not  only  by  taking 
away  a  granted  power,  but  can  go  a  step 
farther,  and  take  away  a  prohibited  power. 
Do  you  believe  the  wise  men  who  made  this  Gov- 
ernment, ever  designed  to  so  construct  the  instru- 
ment as  to  leave  to  any  party  the  power  to  dis- 
solve it  at  pleasure.  My  objection  to  secession 
is  not  only  that  it  hurts  our  Government,  but  I  go 
still  deeper  than  that,  for  the  argument  reaches 
below  it.  I  object  to  it,  because  if  secession  is 
right,  there  can  never  be  any  government  on 
earth.  Our  Government  will  be  the  last,  if  seces- 
sion be  right.  Nothing  that  shall  be  reconstruc- 
ted with  those  destroying  elements  in  it  can  ever 


190 


live — because  the  most  ordinary  partnership  be- 
tween man  and  man  can  not  exist  upon  that 
principle.  I  am  a  lawyer,  and  an  old  one — I  do 
not  say  a  good  one — but  in  my  practice,  I  have 
been  called  upon  very  often,  and  I  presume  not  as 
often  as  others,  to  draw  up  articles  of  partnership 
between  gentlemen  to  engage  in  business,  and  I 
never  drew  an  article  of  partnership  in  my  life,  in 
which  any  two  men  would  agree  that  their  busi-  ' 
ness  and  partnership  should  be  dissolved  at  plea- 
sure or  at  the  will  of  any  party  to  it.  It  is  always 
drawn  for  a  term  of  years,  or  it  is  to  be  dis- 
solved upon  mutual  consent — or  it  is  to  be  dis- 
solved for  cause  specified  in  the  instrument. 
There  are  not  two  men  who  seek  the  hypei-borean 
regions  of  the  North  in  search  of  peltries — outside 
of  civilization,  at  least,  outside  of  the  functions 
performed  by  judges,  sheriffs  and  constables — two 
gentlemen  in  the  wilderness  of  the  West  would 
never  so  far  stultify  themselves  as  to  enter  into 
articles  of  partnership  in  conducting  the  fur  busi- 
ness, without  a  distinct  power,  so  that  neither 
one  of  them  should  secede  at  will  or  pleas- 
ure, or  so  that  one  gentleman  who  got  the 
most  fur  and  the  largest  amount  of  proceeds 
could  not  take  an  auspicious  moment  for 
leaving  the  concern.  I  do  not  understand 
how  our  Southern  brethren  at  Montgomery  could 
build  up  a  government  holding  in  it  this  spirit  of 
secession.  I  am  clear  that  it  ought  to  have  pro- 
voked a  smile  on  their  part  just  as  it  is  said  that 
there  are  no  two  fortune  tellers  on  earth  who  ev- 
er met  face  to  face  without  a  smile. 

Do  you  think,  gentlemen  who  favor  this 
heresy  of  secession,  do  you  think  when  we 
bought  from  Napoleon  Bonaparte  this  valley 
in  which  we  live,  the  noblest,  richest,  and 
proudest  in  the  world — not  excepting  that  of  the 
Amazon — do  you  think  they  intended  by  the 
power  of  the  Constitution  that  the  moment  they 
gave  Louisiana,  Arkansas,  and  Mississippi  the 
proportions  of  a  State,  that  they  could  wrest  from 
this  Government  this  great  outlet  and  drain  of 
the  valley.  Bonaparte  knew  of  this  valley 
and  was  proud  of  it.  He  knew  two  things — first, 
having  to  fight  all  Europe,  he  had  not  force 
enough  to  attend  to  this  empire  of  the  valley  of 
the  Mississippi.  And  second,  he  knew  very 
well  that  the  people  of  this  nation  would  never 
permit  anybody  to  occupy  it  but  themselves,  and 
under  these  considerations,  and  for  a  comparative 
pittance,  he  yielded  it  to  this  Government— thi3 
large  empire  of  the  valley  of  the  Mississippi. 
Now,  how  does  any  gentleman  suppose  that  the 
people  of  the  United  States,  or  in  the  first  place, 
that  the  Government  of  the  United  States,  was  so 
frame:!  its  at  the  will  and  pleasure  of  Louisiana 
and  Mississippi  jurisdiction  shall  be  taken  of  this 
river — that  the  right  of  free  navigation  should  be 
destroyed,  and  that  we  should  be  cut  off  from  the 
Gulf.      Why,    this  country    was    obtained  be- 


cause it  was  necessary  for  this  very  purpose,  and 
human  blood  would  flow  and  make  a  large  tribu- 
tary to  this  stream  before  that  ri^ht  would  ever 
be  surrendered.  I  know  it  is  said  by  our  kind 
friends  down  S)uth,  who  are  taking  jurisdiction 
of  the  Mississippi,  that  they  are  going  to 
let  us  have  the  free  navigation  of  the  Missis" 
sippi.  They  have  very  good  intentions,  but 
we  have  got  a  m  ich  higher  title  than  any  they 
can  bring  us.  They  say  now  that  a  vessel  com- 
ing up  the  Mississippi  river,  with  freight  from 
Europe  or  elsewhere,  must  stop  and  enter  into 
bonds,  and  that  within  the  territory  of  this  new- 
Government  no  freight  shall  be  distributed. 
However  much  we  may  ba  bound  by  chords  of 
svmpathy  to  this  government,  by  our  institutions, 
however  friendly  we  may  think  this  government 
will  be,  what  patriotic  man  in  Missouri  is  willing 
to  concede  to  any  but  the  common  Government 
jurisdiction  over  this  stream?  It  is  no  question 
whether  they  will  exercise  the  power  immediately 
towards  us — the  question  is  whether  you  will  give 
them  the  power  at  all.  I  do  not  suppose  any 
practical  gentleman  here,  Avhatever  may  be  his 
tropical  tendencies,  will  ever  consent  that  the 
navigation  of  the  river  shall  ever  be  dependent 
upon  the  most  fraternal  government  that  can  be 
instituted  in  the  South. 

There  are  other  qu3stions  that  are  involved  in 
this  doctrine  of  secession — there  is  a  Territory  be- 
tween us  and  the  Rocky  Mountains  called  Desser- 
et,  occupied  by  aliens — men,  scarcely  any  of  whom 
have  sworn  allegiance  to  the  country.  They  are 
the  depositories  of  their  own  political  power, 
but  fortunately  now,  they  cannot  secede,  be- 
cause they  have  not  grown  up  into  the  statue  of 
sovereignty.  But  being  admitted  into  the 
States,  then  they  can  instanter  secede,  and 
this  Switzerland  of  America  could  pass 
out  of  our  hands.  They  would  doub  less  have 
something  to  say  upon  the  subject.  If  any  reason 
was  required  as  to  their  constitutional  right,  they 
could  furnish  one;  they  could  say,  doubtless, 
that  they  desired  to  live  in  fraternal  association 
wiih  the  people  of  the  States— that  they  loved  the 
Federal  Government  of  the  States,  excepting  only 
that  they  were  behind  the  age,  and  that  they  did 
not  understand  the  religion  of  the  Savior  of  man- 
kind—that there  are  certain  patriarchal  rights 
which  the  people  in  this  country  arc  not  civilized 
enough  to  recognize,  except  in  Desseret;  and  be- 
cause we  want  to  live  after  the  manner  of  the 
patriarchs,  therefore  we  secede.  Let  us  come 
nearer  home.  At  Washington  there  rises  a  beau- 
tiful and  proud  structure  that  attracts  the  gaze  of 
mankind,  not  only  from  its  collossal  aud  archi- 
tectural proportions,  but  because  it  is  the  seat 
of  power  in  this  land;  because  the  ar- 
chives of  the  nation  are  preserved  there, 
because  the  emblems  of  our  power  and  the  source 
of  our  authori.y  are  there,  and  around  which  all 


191 


nations  of  the  earth  concentrate  with  their  am- 
bassadors— the  point  at  which  all  treaties  are  to 
he  matured;  a  point  at  which  presides  the  only 
department  of  Government  which  represents  her 
supreme  power  with  the  nations  of  the  earth.  It 
is  the  theatre  in  which  patriotic  genius  has 
wrought  its  highest  achievement  and  success.  It 
is  the  sacred  spot  where  Washington  sat— it  bears 
his  name,  and  his  virtues  are  commemorated  in 
a  monument,  the  stones  of  which  were  taken 
from  every  State,  and  which  are  inscribed  with 
patriotic  sentiments.  Millions  of  money  have 
been  expended  at  this  central  point  of  our  repub- 
lican glory;  but  it  is  within  the  limits  of  what 
was  once  the  sovereign  State  of  Maryland.  Can 
the  Maryland  Legislature,  or  a  Maryland  Con- 
vention, some  of  these  coming  summer  days,  sit 
down  and  write  upon  a  piece  of  parchment  these 
words :  "  We  resume  the  sovereign  power — not 
only  such  as  we  delegated,  but  such  as  we  pro- 
hibited, to  ourselves — we  resume  these  powers 
by  virtue  of  the  inherent  sovereignty  which 
once  belonged  to  us,  and  now,  by  right  of  emi- 
nent domain  we  will  take  this  ten  miles  square, 
which  includes  the  Washington  Monument  and 
the  glories  of  this  Republic;  we  will  take  them 
all  by  right  of  eminent  domain,  just  as  South 
Carolina  claims  to  take  Fort  Sumter  in  the  bay  of 
Charleston."  Who  is  there  here,  with  that  proper 
regard  for  the  wonderful  sagacity  of  the  pro- 
found statesmen  who  made  our  laws;  who,  in  this 
Convention,  or  in  this  hall,  that  would  say  that 
was  the  sort  of  government  which  our  fathers 
made,  and  that  it  was  by  such  alliance  as  that 
they  bound  us  together.  Mr.  President, 
secession  will  not  do,  it  is  so  destructive 
in  theory  to  the  very  idea  of  government,  that  it 
cannot  last  before  the  scrutiny  and  gaze  of  reason. 
I  do  not  like  even  its  emblem. 

I  looked  one  day  toward  the  Southern  skies— 
toward  that  sunny  land  which  constitutes  our 
Southern  possessions,  and  I  saw  a  banner  floating 
in  the  air.  I  am  not  skilled  in  herladry  and  I 
may  mistake  the  sign,  but  as  it  first  rose  it  pre- 
sented a  single  dim  and  melancholy  star,  set  in 
a  field  of  blue,  representing  I  suppose  a  lost  polit- 
ical pleiad  Wandering  through  space.  A  young 
moon — a  crescent  moon  was  by  her  side,  appropri- 
ately plucked  from  our  planetary  system  as  the 
most  changable  of  all  representatives  known  to  it. 
[Laughter.]  A  satellite  to  signify  thevissisitudes 
which  must  attend  its  career.  The  sad  spectacle 
wound  up  with  the  appropriate  emblem  of  the 
cross,  denoting  the  tribulation  and  the  sorrow 
which  must  attend  its  going.  I  could  not  favor 
any  such  banner. 

'•When  freedom  from  her  mountain  night 
Unfurled  her  standard  to  the  air, 

She  tore  the  azure  robe  of  night, 
And  set  the  stars  of  glory  there, 

She  mingled  with  its,  ^eorpeousdiea, 
The  milky  tirdle  of  the  skies, 


And  striped  its  pure,  celestial  white, 
With  streakings  of  the  morning  light. 

Then  from  his  mansion  in  the  skies, 
She  called  her  eagle  bearer  down, 

And  gave  into  his  mighty  hand 
The  symbol  of  her  chosen  land."  [Applause.] 

The  Chair.  I  will  clear  the  lobby  if  there  is 
anymore  cheering.  If  you  desire  to  hear  the 
speaking  you  must   be  quiet. 

Mr.  Wright.  Mr.  President,  I  have  said 
enough  at  least,  to  show  my  views  in  regard  to 
the  character  of  our  Government.  Now,  sir,  be- 
fore we  break  it  up,  let  us  see  what  this  Govern- 
ment has  done.  I  do  not  ask  you  to  pause  and 
consult  your  heart  and  the  feelings  and 
sentiments  which  actuate  you;  I  won't  ask 
you  to  worship  it  as  a  thing  to  be  venerated ; 
I  won't  ask  you  to  love  it  simply  because  it 
is  an  inheritance  transmitted  to  you  by  the 
Fathers,  but  I  will  try  it  by  the  standard,  the 
touchstone  and  the  achievements  of  men.  I  will 
try  it  by  the  work  it  has  done  in  the  world;  I  will 
try  it  by  what  it  has  accomplished,  and  see 
whether  we  should  cling  to  it,  see  whether 
there  is  any  cause  why  we  should  leave  it  or  break 
it  up. 

What  has  it  done?  Eighty-four  years  ago,  or 
a  little  more,  we  broke  from  Great  Britain.  We 
were  then  three  or  four  millions  strong;  the  colo- 
nies were  dependent  upon  the  mother  govern- 
ment, and  the  policy  of  that  government  Avas  to 
make  it,  as  it  is,  the  workshop  of  the  world,  a  fact 
to  which  I  shall  call  your  attention  some  time 
during  my  remarks.  But  we  were  then  cut  off 
from  all  invention  in  machinery,  and  from  any  of 
those  developments  of  mind  which  have  since 
characterized  it. 

There  was  not  an  engineer  in  America  when 
Fitch  invented  the  steamboat.  He  had  to  use  the 
common  blacksmiths  of  the  country  to  execute 
his  conceptions;  and  tenor  fifteen  years  later, 
when  Fulton  made  his  successful  experiment,  he 
had  to  get  his  boilers  from  England,  and  a  por- 
tion of  the  machinery  was  made  there  also.  But 
after  we  were  emancipated  from  the  thraldom  of 
the  British  crown,  in  less  than  ten  years  after  our 
Declaration  of  Independence,  the  first  steamboat 
of  the  world  floated  on  the  waters  of  the  Dela- 
ware, in  the  presence  of  the  assembled  Governor 
and  people.  Since  that,  look  at  what  marvels 
we  have  accomplished.  In  the  field  of  invention 
we  have  run  past  all  nations  of  the  earth* 
and  such  men  as  Cob  den,  the  great  com- 
moner of  England,  who  has  been  struggling 
during  his  parliamentary  life  to  get  the  statesmen 
of  England  to  follow  the  model  of  this  country, 
said  when  he  came  here — or  rather  the  Com- 
missioners were  sent  by  the  Government  of  Eng- 
land, to  look  at  the  Crystal  Palace,  and  at  the 
genius  and  the  inventions  of  the  American 
mind — when  these  Commissioners  went  back  to 
England,  Mr.  Cobden  communicates  with  them, 


192 


and  he  says  at  the  Lyceum  or  Institute  in  Man- 
chester— he  tells  the  Crown  that  if  Eng- 
land wants  to  keep  up  in  this  race  with 
that  country,  which  only  a  few  years  ago 
broke  from  the  Crown,  she  must  encour- 
age a  school  for  inventive  genius.  He  tells  them 
that  England  must  develope  this  inventive 
genius,  for  she  has  fallen  behind  in  the  race  in 
competition  with  her  offspring,  the  young  giant 
of  the  West.  If  the  people  of  that  country  want 
to  get  a  lock  or  a  sale,  they  have  to  come  to 
America  for  it;  if  they  want  to  reap  anything 
in  a  harvest,  some  man  in  America  must  furnish 
the  machine;  if  they  want  a  vessel  that  shall 
plow  the  seas  and  move  triumphant  over  the 
deep,  they  have  to  get  their  ideas  from  the  naval 
architecture  of  America.  I  remember  when  a 
boy  my  young  heart  felt  fluttered,  not  with  pride, 
but  with  shame  when  I  read  the  inquiry  of  Dar- 
win "Who  reads  an  American  book?'7  Since 
that  time  historians  by  the  number  rise  and  take 
their  places  with  the  standard  authors  of  the  world. 
By  the  side  of  Gibbon,  Hume  and  Robinson  and 
the  later  historians  come  Bancroft  and  Prescott, 
in  literature  that  takes  a  place  in  the  classic  gal- 
axy of  the  world.  The  forms  of  sculptured  beau- 
ty that  have  come  to  us  from  the  chisels  of  the 
old  Greeks  are  now  almost  rivalled  by  one  whom 
America  sends  to  the  land  of  arts.  Educational 
institutions,  freedom,  Christianity  and  piety  in 
all  its  forms  have  advanced  in  this  country  be- 
yond the  progress  of  any  nation  ©n  the  face  of 
the  earth  within  the  period  of  time  that  has 
made  us  a  nation.  Our  law  makers  are  read  as 
authorities  the  world  over  on  questions  of  nation- 
al law,  and  the  disquisitions  of  our  statesmen 
have  a  place  side  by  side  with  the  most  celebrated 
publicists  of  the  word.  In  every  department  of 
human  progress,  in  all  that  belongs  to  us  as 
an  eminently  christianized  and  civil  people,  we 
are  behind  no  people  in  the  world.  This  has  been 
the  work  of  but  a  few  years;  but  in  this  race  of 
national  progress,  we  have  achieved  wonders  and 
marvels  that  attract  the  attention  of  all  mankind. 
There  is  not  a  man  in  the  world  who  wears  a  glit- 
tering diadem  on  his  brow  that  has  not  been 
looking  at  the  progress  of  America  with  a  senti- 
ment of  awe,  and  there  are  no  people  on  this 
earth,  down-trodden  and  oppressed  as  they  may 
be,  who  have  not  turned  their  eyes  towards 
America — as  a  Mussleman  turns  his  face  towards 
Mecca — with  aspirations  in  their  hearts,  that  if 
they  cannot  come  here  and  live  under  the  broad 
aegis  of  this  Government,  their  children  shall  do 
it.  And  better  still,  by-and-by,  under  the 
moral  influence  of  the  institutions  of  America, 
their  own  unhappy  country  may  at  last  arise 
above  oppression,  and  secure  to  their  poster- 
ity the  liberties  which  we  here  enjoy.  Every 
man  in  this  country  who  is  under  the  benign  and 
protecting  influence  of  our  Government  has  been 


able  to  share  and  enjoy  property  to  himself,  and 
the  fruits  of  his  labors.  The  inventive  minds  of 
labor,  in  ordinary  and  extraordinary  forms ;  all 
have  their  labors  secured  to  them  by  the  Govern- 
ment in  which  we  live.  If  the  mind  is  inspired 
with  ambition  for  the  highest  walks  of  life,  or  if 
humble  in  its  sphere,  it  is  secure  in  all  it  loves  to 
do;  and  everywhere  the  artisan,  the  farmer,  the 
lawyer,  the  merchant,  the  manufacturer — all  men 
feel  alike,  and  share  alike,  the  benign  influence 
of  this  Government,  so  that  now,  rising  step  by 
step  and  higher  and  higher,  she  has 
got  upon  the  topmost  Alpine  range, 
and  while  she  stands  there  the  world  looks  on  in 
awe  and  admiration.  And  the  question  of  the 
hour  is,  shall  she,  after  having  reached  that 
point,  and  got  upon  the  summit,  and  remain- 
ed there  long  enough  to  secure  the  admiration  of 
the  world— shall  she  thus  fling  herself  headlong 
from  the  summit  ?  That  is  the  question  of  the 
hour,  and  it  is  a  question  for  this  Convention  and 
the  people  of  America  to  consider.  If  that 
disaster  shall  come— if  this  stupendous  suicide 
shall  be  committed,  it  will  be  the  greatest  fall  the 
world  has  ever  witnessed.  And  I  trust  that  some 
new  poet  of  the  Fall  will  utter  the  shriek  of  hu- 
manity as  she  makes  the  downward  plunge — 
and  that  from  the  abyss,  the  cry  of  agany  may 
come — "  in  the  lowest  deep — a  lower  deep  still 
threatens  to  devour  me." 

I  believe  we  have  no  right  to  commit  this  act 
of  suicide.  We  should  disregard  the  rights 
of  ourselves  and  of  our  children  and  of  humani- 
ty. We  have  no  right  to  break  doAvn  all  confi- 
dence in  popular  government.  Look  at  the  man 
of  the  red  shirt  in  Italy — Garribaldi.  Poor,  un- 
happy, glorious  Garribaldi!  What  must  be  the 
opinions  of  such  a  heart  as  his  when  he  hears  the 
news  from  America.  Will  not  he  say  in  his  hum- 
ble and  unostentatious  home,  "Why  shall  I 
struggle  then  ?  Why  shall  the  Po  run  red  with 
rich  blood  when  after  all  the  struggle  Italy  must 
go  back  into  the  embrace  of  military  despotism 
and  monarchy?  If  America  could  not  stand, 
how  can  Italy  hope  to  do  so?  With  such  a  start, 
with  such  men,  with  such  ancestors  to  keep  a 
government  like  that — if  America  could  not  hold 
on  and  keep  up  her  institutions,  why  should  my 
powers  be  exerted  to  make  a  government  of  that 
sort  on  the  beautiful  plains  of  Italy."  We  have 
no  right  thus  to  be  the  friend  of  the  despotisms 
we  are  waning  against.  For  this  sacred  trust 
did  Washington  rise — for  this  holy  purpose  were 
these  institutions  built.'  And  men  who  are  faith 
less  to  their  trust  cannot  escape  the  ignominy 
and  contempt  which  will  be  sure  to  follow. 

Mr.  President,  I,  for  one,  shall  take  no 
hand  in  this  national  suicide.  I  will  not  be 
false  to  my  country,  false  to  humanity  and 
false  to  my  allegiance.  Now  let  me  consider  this 
resolution. 


193 


"Resolved,  That  at  present  there  is  no  adequate 
cause  to  impel  Missouri  to  dissolve  her  connec- 
tion with  the  General  Government;  but,  on  the 
contrary,  she  will  labor  for  such  an  adjustment  of 
existing  troubles,  as  will  secure  peace  as  well  as 
the  rights  and  equality  of  all  the  States/' 

There  is  no  adequate  cause,  says  the  resolution ; 
I  grant  it.  But  still  we  have  a  cause  to  complain. 
There  must  be  some  cause,  real  or  imaginary,  to 
have  produced  the  effects  which  are  now  visible 
all  through  these  States.  Such  public  disorders 
have  never  presented  themselves  before.  We 
have  had  critical  periods  before,  but  no  trouble 
like  the  present,  and  one  of  the  greatest  difficul- 
ties about  these  troubles  is  their  intangibility  of 
character.  Our  sentiment  of  honor  is  assailed; 
our  rights  are  invaded;  not  bylaw,  but  by  de- 
clared purposes,  and  our  equality  is  practi- 
cally denied.  Our  sentiments  of  honor  are  wound- 
ed; our  sensibilities  are  hurt,  and  there  are  dog- 
mas and  constitutional  propositions  rife  in  the 
land,  which,  if  ripened  into  action  would  materi- 
ally disturb  us.  The  main  cause,  but  not  the  only 
cause  is  this  African  question.  That  African  ques- 
tion itself,  has  been  exasperated,  and  intensified 
by  other  considerations  which  are  not  glanced  at, 
except  very  incidentally  in  the  report,  and  they 
have  not  been  illustrated  by  any  member  who 
has  arisen  on  this  floor.  The  agitation  of  this 
slavery  question  is  the  most  prominent  cause  of 
our  public  disorders ;  but  behind  that  and  co- 
operating with  it  is  another  cause,  and  that  is 
the  par;y  spirit  in  this  land;  and  that  has  arisen 
out  of  the  immense  patronage  at  the  Federal 
head— a  fruitful  source  of  corruption,  dividing  and 
destroying  the  independence  of  our  public  men, 
and  getting  up  a  condition  in  political  organiza- 
tions which  will  seize,  in  all  quarters,  North  and 
South,  every  element  of  fanaticism  which  may 
be  valuable  as  a  political  power  in  the  political 
condition  of  the  day.  We  know  enough  of  party 
among  us — we  need  not  go  out  of  the 
State  of  Missouri  to  be  assured  of  that 
fact;  that  parties,  especially  in  times  of 
excitement,  will  avail  themselves  of  ev- 
ery obtainable  element  around  them — whether 
fanaticism  or  anything  else — party  will  avail  it- 
self of  everything  around  it  that  can  be  converted 
into  political  capital.  What  is  the  result?  One 
section  of  the  country  will  be  arrayed  against  the 
other,  so  that  there  is  a  positive  emulation  in  par- 
ties in  this  country,  and  has  been  for  twenty-five 
years,  and  between  political  organizations  in  this 
country,  to  see  who  can  be  most  successful  in  con- 
trolling that  element  which  will  enable  men  to 
mount  up  those  steeps  that  statesmen  climb. 

I  do  not  propose  to  go  into  the  anti-slavery  agita- 
tion, but  I  have  some  views  in  regard  to  the  ques- 
tion which,  not  having  been  submitted  by  others, 
I  will  endeavor  to  present.  It  is  said  by  the  Abo- 
litionists of  the  North,  that  slavery  is  not  only  a 


sin,  but  it  is  a  crime — that  it  is  the  sum  and  sub- 
stance of  all  other  crimes  in  the  decalogue.  These 
are  men  who  have  representatives  in  such  char- 
acters as  Phillips  and  Garrison.  They  say  the  Con- 
stitution of  the  United  States  is  a  covenant  with 
hell,  and  that  there  is  no  provision  in  it  which  re- 
cognizes the  relation  of  master  and  slave — that  it 
is  against  the  Divine  law,  and  therefore  they  are 
for  the  destruction  of  our  present  Constitution. 
The  Republican  party  of  the  North  say,  we  stand 
between  you  and  the  Abolitionists ;  we  rise  up  as 
an  intermediate  party ;  we  do  not  claim  to  interfere 
with  slavery  in  the  States .  The  Abolitionists  say 
it  is  a  crime  everywhere,  that  it  is  the  crime  of 
the  age — that  it  is  a  human  iniquity  every- 
where, and  it  must  be  destroyed.  The  Repub- 
lican party  say  no,  we  will  not  touch  it  in  the 
States;  we  have  nothing  to  do  with  it>  in  the 
States.  It  is  surrounded  by  constitutional 
guarantees  in  the  States,  and  more  than  that, 
we  have  that  provision  which  makes  the  Fugi- 
tive Slave  Law  obligatory  upon  every  man;  but 
in  regard  to  slavery  in  the  Territories,  they  say 
that  cannot  be.  Why?  Now,  just  here  wo  find 
the  Abolitionists  and  the  radical  Republicans 
meet.  The  Republican  does  not  say  the  Consti- 
tution of  the  United  States  is  a  covenant  with 
hell  and  against  the  divine  law.  He  does  not 
think  that  the  institutions  of  the  South  are  ab- 
solutely wicked,  but  when  they  come  to  the  argu- 
ment why  it  shall  not  go  into  the  Territories,  then, 
they  take  up  the  line  of  argument  furnished  by 
the  Abolitionists,  and  they  say  it  is  a  curse  and  a 
bio"-  upon  the  country.  Take  the  view  that  was 
given  by  Senator  Baker — and  I  was  sorry  to  see 
it,  for  he  is  my  friend — because  I  looked  upon 
that  man  as  possessed  of  genius,  and  looked  to 
his  future  rise — take  his  view  as  given  in  the 
Senate  of  the  United  States,  and  he  says  it 
is  a  black  spot  upon  America.  So  when  yon 
come  to  argue  with  the  Republicans  why  slavery 
should  not  be  extended  there,  they  take  up  the 
position  of  the  Abolitionists,  and  declare  it  is  im- 
moral, a  blight,  a  curse  and  a  black  spot  on  our 
institutions,  and,  although  we  won't  trouble  it  or 
attempt  to  wipe  it  out  within  the  boundaries  of 
the  States,  it  shall  not  extend  beyond  the  bound- 
aries. Well,  now,  in  the  best  and  most  fraternal 
spirit,  under  the  promptings  of  fraternal  regard, 
under  a  state  of  mind  which  will  enable  me  to 
pardon  much  where  I  see  it  associated  with 
patriotism— in  a  fraternal  spirit  I  would  say  to 
the  people  of  the  North,  I  will  be  conscious  of 
your  virtues  and  a  very  little  blind  to  your  faults, 
and  in  that  spirit  let  me  suggest  to  you  some  of  the 
improprieties  of  that  argument.  You  do  not  deny 
that  the  relation  of  master  and  slave  i^  recog- 
nized by  the  Constitution.  You  say  it  is  a  consti- 
tutional right  that  the  master  should  take  back 
his  fugitive  from  service.  Now,  if  we  were 
founding  a  government  this  day,  we  should  have 


194 


the  element  of  the  African  among  us  and  the 
element  of  the  Indian — we  should  have  to  deter- 
mine among  ourselves  what  (if  any)  part  of  the 
rights  should  be  conferred  on  the  black  man,  in 
the  distribution  of  power  in  the  government  that 
we  were  going  to  make.  In  the  formation  of  this 
government  you  could,  if  you  though  t  so,  take 
the  ground  that  the  relation  of  master  and 
slave  is  void.  But  when  living  under  the 
Constitution  of  the  Un'ted  States,  supporting 
the  Constitution  itself — that  fundamental 
charter  by  which  all  our  actions  must  be 
measured — tell  me  what  right  you  have  to  say 
that  slavery  is  a  sin  ?  Tell  me  what  right  you 
have  to  say  that  slavery  is  immoral?  Tell  me  by 
what  right  you  say  it  is  a  curse?  Tell  me  by 
what  right  you  say,  as  a  member  of  the  Ameri- 
can Confederacy,  a  supporter  of  the  Constitution 
of  the  United  States — what  right  have  you  to 
say  it  is  a  black  spot  on  our  institutions?  What- 
ever is  constitutional  must  be  right.  The  politi- 
cal right  of  government  is  not  a  system  of  ethics — 
it  is  not  a  code  of  morals — nor  is  it  an  elabora- 
tion upon  the  virtues,  and  charities,  and  benevo- 
lence of  the  human  soul.  Of  all  practical  things  in 
the  world  government  is  the  most  practical.  The 
Constitution  of  the  United  States  is  not  an  essay 
upon  the  rights  of  man;  it  is  not  an  essay  upon 
ethical  doctrine,  but  it  is  practically  laying  down 
a  government  which  is  designed  to  secure  the 
rights  of  every  man  and  every  citizen.  Of  all  prac- 
tical things  in  this  world,  I  repeat,  government  is 
the  most  practical.  It  is  nothing  more  than  an  ac- 
tual scheme  by  which  the  greatest  benefit  is  to  be 
brought  about  to  the  greatest  number  of  people. 
The  object  is  to  secure  certain  rights — life,  lib- 
erty and  property.  If  you  want  any  other  sort  of 
government  you  have  to  go  to  the  Utopian 
dreams  of  Plato.  You  might  find  in  the  Consti- 
tution which  John  Locke  puzzled  his  understand- 
ing over— you  might  find  some  Utopian  scheme 
in  regard  to  government.  But  the  men  who 
framed  our  Constitution  were  not  Platos  nor 
Lockes.  They  were  practical,  sensible  gentle- 
tlemen,  and  knew  well  how  to  sacrifice  a  theory 
and  make  out  of  it  some  practical  good.  Don't 
you  see,  if  you  say  slavery  is  a  sin,  that  you 
charge  that  document  itself  with  being  a  corrupt 
and  immoral  document  ?  If  slavery  be  a  sin  and 
recognized  by  the  Constitution,  the  Constitution 
itself  is  a  sinful  and  immoral  document.  Do  you 
mean  that,  or  have  you  only  availed  yourself  of  it 
in  party  strife,  that  you  might  fire  the  fanaticism 
around  you,  and  beat  the  Democracy,  and  elevate 
yourselves  ?  If  you  take  that  ground,  you  cannot 
do  it  without  imputing  immorality  to  the  instru- 
ment which  came  from  our  fathers,  an  everlasting 
work,  I  trust — you  impute  to  them  dis- 
honor— you  say  within  itself  it  is  corrupt. 
I  do  not  know  what  you  think  of  it 
on    careful    reflection,   but    it   seems   to    me 


you  must  lose  in  some  degree  your  allegiance  to 
the  instrument  itself,  when  by  your  argument 
you  impute  to  it  the  character  of  an  immoral 
and  sinful  document.  Such  an  argument  is 
offensive.  It  is  an  assumption  of  superiority 
you  have  no  right  to  claim.  You  may  be 
more  learned  than  the  framers  of  the  Consti- 
tution, but  you  impute  to  them  nere-sarily, 
dishonor,  and  you  offend  our  private  character 
and  you  wound  our  self-respect  in  doing  it. — 
I  was  uttering  just  such  words  as  these,  (being  a 
Black  Republican,  and  especially  showing  mypnn- 
ciples  by  battling  against  Lincoln  during  the  last 
canvass,)  in  the  Military  Garden  of  New  York, 
when  a  gentleman  in  the  crowd  said:  "Sir,  you 
seem  to  be  a  fair  man,  and  you  tell  me  this  ter- 
ritorial question  is  only  important  in  one  respect, 
and  that  is  that  the  dogma  of  Republicanism 
makes  it  offensive.  Sir,  I  am  a  candid  man,  and 
I  think  you  are  so,  and  I  would  like  to  have  you 
tell  me  how  I  have  been  offensive  in  wanting 
slavery  prohibited  in  the  territories.  I  do  not 
mean  to  do  anything  offensive.  I  like  the  people 
of  the  South,  and  I  respect  them."  "  Sir,"  I  re- 
plied, "  I  think  it  is  offensive.  Do  you  not  see 
practically  that  there  are  fifteen  slave  States,  but 
you  will  have  no  more  such;  you  tolerate 
such  as  have  slavery,  but  you  will  not  have  any 
more  such.  You  say  practically  in  regard  to  the 
common  territory — you  say  practically  in  regard 
to  the  Government,  that  the  people  can  go  there 
just  as  Avell  as  we  can;  but  you  say  when  a  man 
South  comes  to  the  territory  he  must  put  himself 
in  quarantine  until  he  rids  himself  of  a  disease  and 
gets  cured  of  a  black  plague,  and  then  he  can  come 
in  and  not  before.  Now,  sir,  that  is  offensive." 
Said  the  man  in  reply,  "  I  believe  it  is ;  and  I  tell 
you  candidly,  I  never  looked  at  it  in  that  light 
before;  I  looked  upon  it  as  a  political  arrange- 
ment— a  mere  question  of  political  economy ;  ac- 
cording to  my  views,  it  being  better  that  the 
South  should  have  no  slaves  in  the  territories,  I 
thought  I  was  exercising  a  power  for  the  benefit 
of  that  people.  I  thought  I  was  taking  from  them 
a  burden  to  their  intelligence  and  safe  progress. 
That  is  precisely  the  position  the  Republican  party 
occupy,  or  numbers  of  them  now  in  the  great 
crisis  of  this  country.  "Where  is  the  conservative 
Republican  that  won't  say :  "  Well,  I  will  stop 
calling  my  sister  hard  names;  I  won't  say,  every 
time  the  family  meet,  that  there  is  a  sister 
that  is  deformed— she  has  got  a  cancer  at  her 
heart,  she  has  got  a  plague  spot;  for  it  is  not  sis- 
terly to  say  it,  and  no  man  ought  to  say  it  who 
loves  the  Union,  no  man  can  say  it  without  hurting 
the  sensibilities  and  wounding  the  honor  of  those 
who  have  their  institutions  among  them."  We 
ought  not  to  say  it  out  of  respect  to  our  fathers, 
for  they  were  respectable  gentlemen  and  practi- 
cal, and  they  dealt  with  it  in  a  way  every  Repub- 
lican in  this  land  ought  to  admire,  and  would, 


195 


but  for  the  hates  gendered  by  these  party  con- 
tests, and  stirred  and  inflamed  by  means  of  the 
power  accumulated  at  the  Federal  head — that  is 
loosening  and  weakening  the  power  of  this   Gov- 
ernment.  It  is  that  which  makes  defalcation  an 
epidemic  in  the  land.    It  is  that  which  almost 
prevents  a  man  from  having  the  moral  courage, 
on  the  floors  of  Congress,  to  declare  the  independ-  j 
ent  and  honest  convictions  of  his  own  mind,  lest 
it  might  impinge  between  him  and  some  party.   : 
If  this  Government  lives,  it  must  be  through  the  i 
honest  and  independent  exercise  of  those  who 
are  to  make  our  laws,  and  especially  to  make  our 
policy. 

How  did  our   fathers   treat   this    question  of 
slavery  when  they  came  to  form  the  Constitu-  : 
tion,   after    they   had  fought    in    partnership? 
They  resolved  to  determine  in  council,  whether 
they  could  live  together  under  it  upon  such  prin-  j 
ciples  as  would  accomplish  the  general  object 
and  design  of  the  perpetual  blessing  of  self-gov-  j 
eminent.    Now,  they  were  men  who  differed  es- 
sentially  in  many   respects.     The  pilgrim  was 
quite  different  from  the  cavalier;  the  Huguenot  j 
was  quite  different  from  each,  and  the  Germans 
were  another  race.      They  had  various  notions 
of  policy,  not  practically,  but  abstractly,  upon  the  j 
slavery  question.  But  when  they  went  practically  ! 
to  work  to  build  up  the  Government.    What  did  j 
they  do  ?  The  first  thing  they  saw  was  the  red  man,  | 
more  populous  and  troublesome  to  our  ancestors,  i 
The  trouble   of  their  descendants  is  that  of  the 
black  man,  for  we  have  effectually  disposed  of  ( 
the  red  man  and  he  is  in  the  course  of  ultimate  \ 
extinction.    But  the  first  question  which  came 
up  to  our  fathers,  was,  what  shall  we  do  with  the  j 
red  man?    "Well,  that  depends  practically,  says  j 
the  statesman,  "upon  what  sort  of  a  man  he  is ;  I 
whether  we  can  confer  upon  him  any  powers ; 
we  are  no  Platonists,  or  theorists  now,  because 
we  are  going  to   build  a   Government— lay  the 
foundations  of  power  and  distribute  it,  and  de- 
clare rights  and  define  them ;  and  what  shall  be 
the  rights  of  the  Indian  ?    He  is  a  human  being, 
within  the  circle  of  the  humanitarian,  and  with- 
in  the  circle   of  the   Declaration  of  Indepen-  | 
dence,    because     he     was     created,    and     the 
question  is,    what  shall  we  do  with  him.    He  is 
a  savage — a  barbarian,  wild  and  untamed;   he 
will  not   work    and   we    cannot  civilize    him; 
he  is  impregnable  to  all   influences    of  civiliza- 
tion. Shall  we  make  him  President  or  Vice  Presi- 
dent— eligible  to  any  office — to  a  seat  in  the  Cabi- 
net, in  the  Senate,  or  a  member  of  Congress,  or 
of  the  General   Assembly,    or   a  Justice   of  the 
Peace,  or  give  him  the  right   of  suffrage.    You 
know  they  could  not  say  it   without  stultifying 
themselves — they  would  cease  to  be  the   men  of 
the  Revolution  if  they  had  uttered  such  doctrine. 
But  they  said  we  will  endeavor  to   repress  these 
savage  virtues  which  take  the  shape  of  larceny, 


and  that  ot^er  power  which  takes  the  shape  of 
revenge,  and  we  will  not  give  him  power,  but  we 
will  treat  him  with  the  utmost  kindness,  and  let 
him  sing  his  death  songs,  and  let  him  go  to  his 
happy  hunting  ground  in  peace.  Having  dis- 
posed of  them,  they  turn  to  the  black 
man,  and  the  question  arose,  what  place 
shall  he  have?  What  is  he?  He  is  a 
savage,  a  barbarian,  brought  by  Portugal  from 
the  shores  of  Africa,  where  his  condition  was  es- 
sentially barbarous.  He  was  brought  from  his 
country  piratically,  and  put  upon  this  country  by 
the  mother  government.  He  is  a  little  different 
from  the  Indian  in  one  respect;  he  can  be  made 
to  work,  especially  in  a  warm  climate,  and  be- 
cause he  will  work,  therefore  he  is  accessible  to 
civilization  and  Christianity — they  will  greatly 
operate  on  his  moral  and  physical  nature.  We 
cannot  turn  him  loose,  but  we  must  make  the 
best  use  we  can;  we  must  make  him  subject  to  a 
superior  will;  and  his  nature  is  such  that  he  must 
be  subject  to  a  superior  will,  and  one  of  the  most 
remarkable  things  is  that  he  lives  only  by 
subjection  and  the  will  of  a  superior 
race.  If  left  to  himself  he  can  accomplish 
no  result;  he  goes  down  in  the  descending  scale  of 
deterioration.  But  under  the  superior  will  of  a 
better  race  he  can  be  taught  the  benefits  of  civili- 
zation. As  I  shall  attempt  to  show  you  in  the 
concluding  portion  of  my  remarks,  his  place  in 
the  world  is  a  most  important  one.  Our  fathers, 
therefore,  as  wise  men,  did  not  trust  the  Govern- 
ment in  incompetent  hands;  and,  therefore,  when 
the  negro  was  excluded  from  participation  in  the 
affairs  of  government,  he  was  excluded  upon  the 
same  principle  that  we  exclude  the  insane  from  par- 
tic  ipation  in  political  affairs.  It  rests  upon  the 
ground  that  society  has  the  right,in  building  a  gov- 
ernment for  its  own  protection,to  exclude  from  par- 
ticipation in  its  own  power  those  who  are  incom- 
petent to  use  that  power  for  the  general  good. 
It  is  upon  that  ground,  perhaps  unwisely,  that  we 
have  excluded  the  better  part  of  creation  from 
participation  in  political  power.  It  may  be  a  mis- 
take, but  woman  has  so  many  high  and  great 
duties  to  perform  in  her  sphere,  and  so  necessary 
is  her  influence  in  another  direction,  that  instead 
of  giving  her  political  power,  our  fathers  said, 
women  shall  govern  the  nursery  of  statesmen. 
You  shall  govern  the  family  household.  You 
shall  train  up  your  children  so  that  when  they 
come  to  manhood,  they  will  save  the  State.  Now, 
have  such  exigencies  arisen  as  to  authorize  us  to 
depart  from  the  plan  of  action  which  our  fathers 
marked  out.  Now,  I  ask  my  Republican  friends, 
what  are  you  going  to  do  with  the  African.  You 
leave  the  African  where  he  is.  You  only  say 
he  ought  not  to  go  west  of  the  Mississippi. 
You  yourselves  do  not  propose  to  admit  him  to 
any  participation  to  the  political  power  of  this 
land. 


196 


Mr.  President,  I  am  not  here  to-da}r  to  defend 
the  institution  of  slavery.  There  is  only  one  tri- 
bunal on  earth  in  which  I  will  condescend  to  de- 
fend it,  and  that  is  a  tribunal  outside  of  the  Uni- 
ted States.  If  I  should  ever  meet  the  Czar  of 
Russia,  or  the  Emperor  of  Austria,  or  the  King 
of  Prussia,  and  they  were  to  talk  about  the  blot 
and  curse  of  slavery  upon  American  institutions, 
I  might  hold  commune  with  their  majesties. 
But  before  I  entered  into  an  argument  I  would 
say,  Czar,  Emperor  and  King,  hold  up  your  hands. 
If  their  majesties  did  it,  I  would  say  they 
are  red  with  blood— they  are  wet  with  the  blood  of 
crushed  and  crucified  Poland;  the  blood  of  mar- 
tyrs— white  people — is  on  your  hands;  and  now, 
Prussia,  you  may  take  down  your  hands,  but 
Czar  and  Emperor  still  hold  yours  up.  And  now 
I  see  upon  your  garments  precious  blood 
more  recently  shed — the  blood  of  Hungary,  the 
white  people  also.  And  if  not  a  lady,  I  would 
say  to  Queen  Victoria,  although  she  is  a  good 
woman,  and  a  woman  of  kind  feeling.  I  would 
say  to  her,  that  blood  of  Ireland  is  on  your  hand 
woman  as  you  arc.  And  now  your  majesties, why 
is  it  that  you  use  your  power — your  standing  ar- 
mies—why  is  it  that  you  will  crush  out  of  white 
men  every  aspiration  that  burns  instinctively  for 
liberty,  and  yet  go  upon  a  crusade  against  Afri- 
can slavery.  I  would  like  to  ask  your  majesties 
this  question :  are  you  not  in  favor  of  the  contin- 
ued savageism  of  the  African,  because  you  are 
not  afraid  of  him ;  the  African  cannot  hurt  your 
diadems,  but  the  white  man  may. 

Mr.  President,  as  you  perceive,  I  have  already 
said  enough  to  show  that  our  Southern  friends 
are  wrong.  They  have  left  us,  have  abandoned 
the  strong  holds  of  government,  and  left  us  single 
handed  to  fight  the  battles.  Now  let  Missouri  do 
the  work  of  the  seceding  States.  Let  us  stand  firm 
in  these  strong  holds,  builded  by  our  fathers  for 
such  a  crisis  as  this. 

By  your  leave,  Mr.  President,  I  will  read  a  prac- 
tical document  which  has  just  come  from  Arkan- 
sas. It  is  a  letter  addressed  by  a  committee  of 
Union  men,  delegates  in  the  Convention  now  in 
session  at  Little  Rock.  It  is  addressed  to  Sample 
Orr  and  myself,  and  is  as  follows : 

Little  Roce,  Axk.,  March  9, 1861. 
Messrs.  Sample  Orr  and  U.  Wright  : 

Gentlemen  :  We,  the  undersigned,  have  been  ap- 
pointed a  committee,  on  the  part  of  the  Union  Dele- 
gates id  the  State  Convention  now  convened  a,t  this 
place,  to  correspond  with  you,  in  order  that  we  may 
understand,  sustain  and  co-operate  with  each  other, 
as  we  ai  e  mutually  interested  in  the  great  efforts  now 
being  made  to  preserve  on  honorable  terms,  if  possi- 
ble, "our  Constitutional  rights  in  the  Union." 

We  stand  in  our  Convention  a  firm,  unwavering 
Union  phalanx  of  forty  to  thirty-four  Secessionists; 
but  we  cannot  stand  alone.  Our  eyes  turn  anxiously 
to  the  position  taken  by  the  Border  States;  and  al- 
though Aikansas  was  not  expected  to  take  a  conser- 


vative stand,  permit  us  to  assure  you  we  will  not  hes» 
itate  to  cast  our  lot  with  those  States,  and  unite  with 
them  in  protecting  our  rights  and  our  sacred  honor 
We  doubtless,  as  border  States,  are  mutually  look* 
ing  with  great  interest  to  the  positions  of  our  respec- 
tive Conventions,  as  the  action  of  each  would  be 
more  or  less  influenced  by  that  of  the  others  could 
they  be  known. 

We  send  you  this  (by  mail,  as  the  telegraph  is  so 
treacherous)  that  you  may  know  our  position,  and 
would  be  pleased  to  learn  yours  in  return  at  an  early 
day.  It  appears  to  be  the  unanimous  desire  amongst 
the  Union  friends  here  that  a  National  Convention  be 
called. 

With  sentiments  of  the  highest  regard  we  subscribe 
ourselves,  Your  obedient  servants, 

A.  W.  DIN  SMOKE, 
II.  T.  THOMASON, 
J.  STILWELL. 

I  took  the  liberty  under  a  carte  blanche  from 
Mr.  Orr,  to  write  back  the  greeting  of  the   Con- 
vention of  Missouri  to  Arkansas,   and  expressed 
pleasure  and  delight  at  the  reception  of  such  a 
communication  from  them,  and  to  assure  Arkan- 
sas that  she  should  not  stand  alone  in  this  great  and 
noble  struggle,  but  that  by  her  the  State  of  Mis- 
souri will  also  stand,   rallying  round  both  would 
be  the  border  slave  States  of  the  Union,  working 
not  to  suffer  dishonor,  not  to  submit  to  degreda- 
tion,because  these  words  are  not  imputable  to  freo 
men  and  men  born  under  such  a  Government  as 
this,    and   reared    under    institutions     left     by 
our      ancestors.         Who      but       a        craven- 
would    submit    to    degradation    and  dishonor  £ 
But   this    question  is  what?    Is  it  honor  or  deg- 
radation?   Some  may  consider  that  dishonorable 
which  another  would  feel  it  to  be  the  proudest 
act  and  sentiment  of  his  life.    I  likewise  under- 
took to  say,  and  perhaps  I  had  not  the  authority 
to  do  so,  but  I  did  not  put  it  in  the  positive,  that 
Missouri    woidi     declare    in    Convention,    that 
there  was  now  no  adequate  cause  for  dissolu- 
tion— but   that     on    the   contrary     there   were 
strong  reasons  why  we  should  remain  in  the 
Union  and  adjust  our  difficulties  through  the  in- 
strumentality of  the  great  means  furnished  us  by 
our  ancestors;  that  we  were  opposed  to  secession 
either   in    theory    or  practice;    that    we    were 
opposed  to  coercion,  and  that  we  would  ask  the 
authority  at  Washington  and  seceding  States,  to 
forbear— to    stay    the    arm  of  military  power; 
that      we     would    call,     likewise,    a    general 
Convention  as  the  only  legal  and  authoritative 
mode  of  effecting  permanent  adjustment  of  our 
difficulties;  and  I  likewise  thought  it  probable 
that  if  Virginia  called  a  Convention  of  the  Bor- 
der States,  Missouri  would    send  delegates    to 
appear  in  that  body,  and  that  finally,  strongly 
attached  }o  the  Union,   holding  allegiance    to 
the  Government,   we  would   take  all  means  in 
our  power,  anc' .especially  those  provided  by  the 
Constitution  for x\.^z  correction  of  our  d borders; 


197 


and  that  likewise  looking  to  an  adjustment,  we 
should  never  lose  sight  of  the  idea  that  Ave  must 
make  the  circle  of  adjustment,  wide  as  the  Union. 
I  trust  I  have  only  anticipated  history  in  the  mis- 
sive which  I  sent. 

On  motion  of  Mr.  Welch  (Mr.  Wright  giving 
way)  the  Convention  adjourned  until  2  o'clock. 

AFTERNOON    SESSION. 

Convention  reassembled  at  2  o'clock. 
Mr.  Wright.    Mr.  President:    Since  the  ad- 
journment,  I  have  ascertained  from  a  personal 
friend  and  one  of  my  colleagues,  whom  I  respect 
highly,  and  whom  I  deem  to  he  a  patriot— a  Re- 
publican member  of  this  Convention— that  he 
materially  misconceived  me  in  some  of  my  utter- 
ances ia  the  morning  speech,  and  as  others  may 
have  misconceived  me  likewise,  I  deem  it  entirely 
proper  that  I  should  set  myself  right  before  this 
Convention  in  regard  to  the  positions  I  actually 
did  assume.    My  colleague    thought  that  I  at- 
tributed to  the  Republican  party  the  design  in 
the  Territories,  to    distribute  political  power  to 
the     African,    and  to    give  him   a    participa- 
tion in  the  exercise  of  political    power,    either 
as  a  voter  or  as  qualified  for  other  offices  which 
were  denied  to  him  in  the  States.    I  must  have 
been  very  unhappy  in  my  expression  to  have  au- 
thorized such  a  construction  as  that;  for  it  was 
my  purpose  and  the  line  of  my  argument    to 
show  that  the  Republican  party  had  no  such  de- 
sign at  all.     On  the  contrary,  the  absence  of  any 
su  h  effort  on  their  part  I  used  as  a  circumstance 
to  show  that  they  did  not  disagree  with  our  fath- 
ers in  the  actual  use  they  made  of  the  red  man 
and  the  black  man.    I  acquit  most  cheerfully  the 
Republican    party  of   any    such   design.    I  do 
not  believe  they  have  any  such   design,  and  I  go 
one  step  further  to  say,  that  I  do  not  believe  that 
the  great  body  of  the  Republican  party  did  really 
design    to   insult    and    wound     the    honor    of 
the  Southern  people.    I  cannot  but  make  a  just 
discrimination  between  the  Abolitionists  who  are 
represented  by  such  men  as  Wendell  Phillips  and 
Lloyd  Garrison,  and  the  great  body  of  the  Re- 
publican party.    I  do  not  believe  that  the  Repub- 
lican party  design  deliberately  to  wound  the  hon- 
or of  their  brethren  South,  and  this  belief  is  one 
of  the  reasons  why  I  have  no  fear  whatever,  that 
we  can  make  an  adjustment  with  our  Republican 
brethren  at  the  North,  which  shall  be  perfectly 
satisfactory  to  all  the  border  S:ates  of  the  Union, 
and  if  they  will  make  such  an  adjustment  with 
the  Border  S;atcs,  our  Southern  brethren  will  be 
left  without  excuse,  if  they  do  not  come  back  in- 
to the  brotherhood  of  these  States. 

Since  the  adjournment,  likewise,  I  have  had  the 
pleasure  of  a  conversation  with  my  very  intelli- 
gent and  logical  friend  from  Marion,  and  I  find 
that  there  are  still  some  lingering  errors  in  his 
mind  which  I  would  like  him  to  get  rid  of,  because 


I  am  proud  of  his  intellect,  and  was  proud  many 
years  ago  when  I  saw  him  leaving  the  walks  of 
private  life,  and  embarking  in  the  profession  of 
law.  I  heard  one  of  his  early  efforts,  and  marked 
him  as  a  man  who  would  rise  in  the  State,  and 
make  a  character  for  himself  that  would  be  high- 
ly honorable.  And  now,  with  your  permission, 
Mr.  President,  and  the  permission  of  this  body, 
let  me  go  back  to  make  an  effort,  humble  though 
it  may  be,  to  rid  that  fine  and  clear  thinking  in- 
tellect of  the  error  into  which  I  conceive  it  has 
fallen. 

I  object  to  secession,  not  only  for  the  reasons 
that  I  have  already  urged,  but  because  it  is  a 
theory  which,  like  all  theories  about  government, 
and  everything  else,  is  apt  to  take  the  concrete 
form  of  action.  Theories  that  are  purely  abstract, 
are  not  hurtful,  but  the  secession  theory  is  hurt- 
ful, Mr.  President,  especially  in  this  that  it  carves 
out,  not  a  revolutionary  right,  but  a  constitution- 
al and  peaceable  right ;  and  if  this  Government 
can  be  destroyed  by  secession,  there  are  men  who 
would  exercise  a  peaceful,  constitutional  right, 
who  would  yet  pause  a  long  time  before  they 
would  run  the  hazards  of  a  revolution.  Many 
men  in  the  South  have  been  seduced  by  this  false 
theory  to  take  a  position  antagonistic  to  their 
country  because  they  thought  it  only  an  exercise 
of  a  pacific  constitutional  right. 

One  word  more  on  secession,  and  I  will  leave 
the  subject.  It  seems  to  me  that  the  theory  of 
secession  is  a  theory  that  can  be  illustrated  by 
Shakspeare V'Jointed  Snake,"  an  animal  made  up 
of  integral  parts,  susceptible  of  disintegration, 
and  it  is  said  of  that  snake,  that  when  one  ap- 
proaches it,  it  flings  itself  to  pieces,  it  becomes 
disjointed,  but  it  has  the  capacity  to  close  and  be 
itself  again.  Take  the  illustration,  and  let  the 
logical  mind  of  my  friend  from  Marion  draw  the 
conclusion.  What  is  it  that  disintegrates  the  entire 
snake?  It  is  the  will  of  the  entire  snake— it  is 
not  the  separate  volition  of  a  joint,  but  it  is  the 
wiU  of  the  entire  animal;  and  if  it  can  be  disinte- 
grated by  that  will,  the  same  power  puts  the  parts 
together.  So  that,  logi eally,  this  power  of  di>in- 
tegration,  this  power  of  separation,  this  argument 
which  makes  a  jointed  snakj  of  these  United 
States,  is  the  will  and  volition  of  all,  and  not  the 
will  and  volition  of  the  separate  parts. 

Again,  it  is  said  by  the  advocates  of  secession 
that  the  Government  of  the  United  States  is  an 
agency,  created  by  the  States.  I  have  answered 
that  argument,  I  trust,  by  showing  that  they 
made  a  government  whose  powers  were  not  only 
delegated  to  it,  but  prohibited  in  the  States.  A 
residuum  only  was  reserved.  Bat  let  it  be  grant- 
ed, for  the  sake  of  argument,  that  the  Govern- 
ment of  the  United  States  is  in  some  sense  an 
agent  created  by  the  States.  What  sort  of  an 
agent  is  it?  The  argument  is  used  only  for  the 
purpose  of  reducing,  by  a  simple  analysis,  this 


198 


beautiful  and  complex  structure— the  features  of 
which  I  have  endeavored,  and  most  imperfectly, 
in  my  opening  speech,  to  explain — to  the  relation 
of  a  principal  to  an  agent,  and  in  order  to 
show  that  it  is  nothing  more  than  the  execution 
of  a  power  of  attorney  on  the  part  of  the  States 
to  the  General  Government,  with  a  revocable 
power  on  the  part  of  the  States  to  destroy  the 
agency  at  any  moment  they  may  choose. 
But  Judge  Redd  is  too  good  a  lawyer 
not  to  know  that  while  generally  the  prin- 
cipal who  makes  the  power  of  attorney,  can 
revoke  that  power,  yet  whenever  the  power 
which  creates  the  agency,  couples  an  interest 
with  it,  it  is  no  longer  revocable.  So  that  the 
effort  to  derive  the  right  of  secession  by  reducing 
our  Government  in  its  admirable  and  Avonderful 
structure,  to  the  simplicity  of  a  power  of  attorney, 
fails  in  this,  that  the  agent  they  make  and  speak 
of,  has,  by  the  very  terms  of  the  power  of  attor- 
ney, a  large  interest  in  the  subject  matter  of  the 
power,  and  that  the  principal  himself,  puts  him- 
self  under  limitations  and  prohibitions,  and  vests 
rights  in  other  parties  which  are  beyond  his  con- 
trol, and  without  the  power  of  his  revocation. 

I  will  proceed,  as  well  as  I  may  with  the  gener- 
al line  of  my  argument  where  I  left  off.  I  was 
speaking  of  the  actual  ills  which  disturb  us;  of 
the  causes  which  create  disquietude,  of  the  evils 
which  bring  about  not  harmony  but  discord,  of 
those  effects  which  disturb  the  tranquility  and 
peace  of  this  nation ;  and  I  pointed  out  some  of 
them.  One  of  the  evils  is  apprehension  of  the 
exercise  of  the  power  and  patronage  of  the 
General  Government  by  the  sectional  party  in 
power,  distributing  its  influence  through  the 
slave  States,  by  conferring  office  upon  individuals. 
Mr.  Seward,  the  philosopher  of  Auburn  and 
martyr  of  Chicago,  said  in  his  Madison  essay 
during  the  compaign,  that  the  people  of  the 
North  wanted  free  speech,  free  press  and  free 
mail;  and  the  people  of  the  South,  said  he  wished 
to  use  these  instrumentalities,  through  the  patron- 
age of  the  General  Government,  for  the  purpose 
of  disturbing  the  institutions  of  the  South. 
They  said  he  intends,  under  that  power, 
to  disseminate  incendiary  documents,  to 
abuse  the  liberty  of  speech  by  representing 
slavery  as  a  curse,  and  to  secure  the 
spread  of  those  doctrines  by  men  in  office  who 
will  hold  influence  and  power,  and  gradually  and 
insensibly,  in  our  very  midst,  there  will  be  a  pow- 
er with  instincts  at  war  against  us.  I  do  not 
pause  upon  the  strength  of  that  apprehension.  I 
do  not  stop  to  question  the  propriety,  or  to  de- 
bate the  propriety,  of  breaking  up  a  government 
such  as  we  have  upon  an  apprehension  like  that; 
hut,  Mr.  President,  you  perceive  that,  underlying 
this  slavery  agitation,  there  is  another  evil  which 
promotes  it  and  gives  power  to  it  at  every  step, 
and  that  is  the  evil  that  I  hinted  at  in  my  open- 


ing— I  mean  the  immense  power  of  patronage 
accumulated  in  the  head  of  the  General  Govern- 
ment, which  has  increased  and  is  increasing  con- 
tinually, and  which  ought  to  be  diminished.  And 
independent  of  the  reasons  which  immediately 
would  prompt  us  to  rely  upon  the  agency  of  a 
General  Convention  to  furnish  Southern  guaran- 
tees, is  the  strong,  pressing,  national  necessity 
that  this  power  of  patronage  should  be  curbed 
and  shorn  of  its  proportions.  There  is  no  man- 
ner of  reason  under  heaven  why,  in  the  National 
Convention,  called  particularly  to  adjust  the 
slavery  issues,  that  body  of  statesmen  of  the 
Norih  and  of  the  South  should  not  be  engaged 
in  an  inquiry  of  the  best  possible  means  by 
which  we  can  cut  off  at  their  fountain  head 
all  these  instrumentalities  which  excite  our 
apprehension.  The  Cabinet  officers  of  the 
Government  may  perhaps  be  left  to  the  ap- 
pointing power  of  the  President,  but  everything 
else  should  be  taken  from  this  General  Govern- 
ment—everything else  should  be  thrown  into  oth- 
er depositories.  I  suggest  it,  simply  because  this 
is  a  thing  to  be  matured,  and  it  seems  to  me  that, 
when  necessary,  the  parent  source  of  all  power,  the 
very  power  by  which  heaven  can  work  its  ends  in  a 
government— the  people— should  take  this  matter 
into  their  hands,  and  effect  the  reform.  Perhaps 
the  proper  plan  would  be  to  distribute  the  other 
powers  in  the  States— to  let  the  several  Congres- 
sional Districts,  or  their  Representatives  in  Con- 
gress, determine  who  shall  be  the  men  to  fill  the 
offices.  Every  statesman  in  the  country  would 
see  that  this  cherished  doctrine  of  State  rights 
would  be  advanced  by  it;  that  the  General  Gov- 
ernment would  be  shorn  of  a  power  which  can  be 
used  hurtfully  against  them;  that  their  municipal 
and  domestic  institutions  would  all  be  secured 
against  any  possible  interference  by  the  Federal 
head.  There  is  another  good  consequence  which 
would  result  from  it  sometimes :  In  the  mad  rage 
of  parties,  removals  from  office  take  place,  which 
are  the  consequence  of  party  prejudice.  A  good 
officer  may  have  his  head  cut  off,  in  a  Pickwick- 
ian sense,  by  the  President  and  his  advisers,  who 
has  the  independence  of  thought  to  say  something 
at  war  with  the  policy  of  the  Administration. 
Now,  if  the  Administration  do  not  appoint,  there 
is  no  temptation  to  the  improper  exercise  of  the 
power  of  removal. 

But  a  word  in  regard  to  free  speech,  free  press 
and  free  mail.  We  live  under  a  Constitution, 
thank  God,  which  enables  eveiy  man  to  speak 
just  what  he  chooses,  print  just  what  he  chooses, 
write  exactly  what  he  chooses,  without  calling 
upon  the  Government  to  say  what  he  shall  speak, 
what  he  shall  write,  or  what  he  shall  preach. 
That  is  the  glorious  freedom  of  the  press;  that 
is  the  glorious  freedom  of  speech.  But  who 
ever  thought  that,  although  a  man  can  speak 
what   he    chooses    and  write  what  he  chooses, 


199 


and  publish  what  he  chooses,  he  is  irresponsible 
for  what  he  speaks,  and  writes,  and  prints  ?  Cer- 
tainly, our  fathers  would  not  think  so,  and  the 
men  who  made  our  Constitution  did  not  think  so; 
for  while  these  essential  guarantees  of  liberty  are 
all  preserved,  side  by  side  with  them  goes  the  re- 
sponsibility for  every  word  we  utter,  for  every 
word  that  we  write,  every  word  that  we  print.  L' 
the  Republican  party  really  do  design  to  make  use 
of  the  instrumentalities  of  free  speech,  and  free 
press,  and  free  mail,  to  utter  feelings  antagonistic 
to  the  peace,  and  welfare,  and  domestic  security 
of  the  people  of  the  slave  States,  they  are  guilty 
of  a  great  and  grievous  error.  They  are  evincing 
a  want  of  fraternal  spirit.  But  I  do  not  believe 
they  have  any  such  design,  and  I  am  quite  sure 
that  they  will  show  by  their  action  in  this  adjust- 
ment with  the  border  States,  that  they  have  no 
such  purpose  in  view.  In  an  excited  political 
contest,  we  all  know  enough  of  party  to  know 
the  extremes  to  which  men  will  go,  and  especially 
if  an  antagonism  be  created  in  the  popular  mind. 
There  is  a  wonderful  distinction  between  the  phi- 
losopher of  Auburn  in  the  canvass,  and  his 
speeches  in  the  Senate  of  the  United  States.  Un- 
questionably he  made  the  most  of  this  slavery 
agitation  in  that  canvass.  Unquestionably,  with 
his  potent  eloquence,  and  his  mental  resources, 
rarely  equalled  by  the  politicians  of  this  country, 
he  touched  every  chord  of  the  Northern  heart  that 
was  capable  of  a  vibration.  But  when  he  comes  to 
the  Senate  of  the  United  States,  and  especially 
when  he  occupies  the  post  of  Premier  of  this  Ad- 
ministration, the  whole  current  of  his  thoughts 
and  ideas  is  changed.  The  man  who  was  radical 
on  the  stump  and  in  debate,  availing  himself  of 
all  the  blunders  which  had  been  committed  at 
Charleston  and  Baltimore,  seizing  with  avidity 
every  antagonism  brought  out  by  extreme  plat- 
forms in  the  South,  when  he  went  before  the  peo- 
ple in  that  canvass  and  traversed  the  Western 
and  Eastern  States  within  the  line  of  free  soil, 
making  a  slight  departure  in  honor  of  Missouri 
but  making  here  no  speech,  he  unquestionably 
availed  himself  as  a  partisan  of  all  the  elements 
of  success  that  were  around  him,  and  the  blunders 
of  rival  parties,  and  the  extreme  dogmas  which 
were  urged  on  the  other  side. 

Organized  agitation  in  the  South  was  na- 
turally followed  by  organized  agitation  in 
the  North,  and  at  last  the  raging  fires  of 
party  strife  ran  over  this  country,  igniting 
everything  that  was  combustible.  There 
was  a  quiet,  modest  craft,  that  had  no  ignitable 
or  combustible  material  on  its  bosom,  that  tried 
to  make  its  quiet  way  in  the  wrath  and  tempest 
of  the  public  mind;  but  it  was  unheeded,  save  in 
my  native  State,  Virginia;  save  in  the  State  of 
Kentucky,  her  daughter,  and  her  natural  ally, 
Tennessee ;  but  out  of  these  regions,  this  quiet,  mo- 


dest, patriotic  craft,  found  no  admirers  and  sup- 
port. 

It  is  a  grand  mistake,  I  think,  Mr.  President, 
to  suppose  that  we  are  now  in  the  condition  in 
which  we  wrere  then.  Then  the  fires  of  party 
were  burning;  all  their  camp-fires  were  lit,  and 
all  the  instrumentalities  which  an  active  partisan 
combat  can  bring  to  bear,  were  put  into  active  ope- 
ration. But  the  temper  and  spirit  of  the  men  who 
engaged  in  that  contest  is  not  the  temper  and  spirit 
which  animates  them  now.  I  was  one  of  those 
men  engaged  in  that  contest.  I  tried  as  I  always 
do,  to  take  a  patriotic  and  a  conservative  part  in 
the  affairs  ©f  this  country,  but  I  suppose  I  was  a 
party  man,  and  struggled  for  my  party,  and  did 
the  best  I  could  to  defeat  the  present  President  of 
the  United  States  and  his  policy.  But  am  I  here 
this  day  and  in  this  Convention,  before  you  and  the 
world — am  I  this  day  a  party  man?  God  forbid! 
There  is  not  a  party  platform  on  which  I  ever 
stood  that  I  would  not  burn  upon  the  altar  of  my 
country's  peace.  There  is  not  a  political  dogma 
that  ever  troubled  this  poor  brain  of  mine,  that  I 
would  not  send  whistling  down  the  wind  when  it 
interferes  with  the  prosperity  and  perpetuity  of 
my  country.  And  there  are  men  in  all  parties 
North  and  South,  who  are  willing  to  burn  their 
platform. 

Sir,  who  is  a  Union  man?  Is  it  the 
man  who  says  he  loves  his  country,  and  there 
stops  ?  Is  he  a  Union  man  ?  Is  he  a  patriot  ?  I  deny 
it.  Is  he  a  Union  man  who  stands  at  the  corner 
and  watches  an  opportunity  to  run  out  of  it  ?  You 
know  he  is  not.  Is  he  a  Union  man  who  wants 
the  Union  preserved  because  he  has  got  the  Presi- 
dent of  his  choice,  and  has  no  other  reason  for  it 
than  that?  That  is  sorry  patriotism.  I  have  got 
no  respect  for  it.  Is  he  your  Union  man  who 
wants  to  preserve  this  Government  in  order  to  car- 
ry out  exasperating  policies  that  are  calculated 
necessarily  to  disturb  the  repose  and  tranquility 
of  this  Government?  So  far  from  being  a  Union 
man,  there  is  treason,  moral  treason  in  his  heart. 
Who,  then,  is  a  Union  man?  It  is  the  man  who 
will  do  something  for  his  country — who  will  do 
something  to  save  it.  What  shall  he  do  ?  Some 
gentlemen  say  they  would  die  to  save  the  coun- 
try. Well,  that  is  patriotic ;  that  is  heroic.  But 
a  thousand  deaths  won't  save  the  country.  Its 
salvation  don't  depend  upon  such  an  oblation  as 
that.  You  might  pile  patriot  after  patriot  upon 
the  altar  of  your  country's  peace,  and  the  death 
of  a  thousand  gallant  hearts  would  not  bring  tran- 
quility and  repose.  But,  fortunately,  Mr.  Presi- 
dent, no  man  is  called  upon  to  die  for  his  coun- 
try, or  for  his  country's  peace.  The  coun- 
try don't  ask  that.  It  asks  a  great  deal 
less  than  that.  It  asks  what  every  man  ought 
to  be  able  to  give,  and  give  with  the  cheer- 
fulness with  which  the  widow  casts  her  mite, 
and  it  is  smaller  than  the  widow's  mite.      Seces 


200 


sion  cannot  save  it,  and  dying  for  it  cannot  save 
it;  but  there  is  a  small  thing  that  can  save  it, 
and  that  is  sacrifice.  Sacrifice  of  what? 
Of  liberty  ?  Of  honor  ?  No !  Liberty  never  made 
such  a  demand,  and  never  will,  arid  our  country 
has  never  asked  such  an  exaction  as  that  from 
any  man  within  it.  But  it  does  ask  him  to  sacri- 
fice, what?  A  little  pride  of  opinion — a  few  poli- 
tical dogmas  that  he  has  in  his  mind,  generated 
in  the  heat  of  party  strife,  born  of  the  desire  to 
climb  to  office  and  get  its  pay — dogmas  spring- 
ing out  of  constitutional  construction  upon  the 
very  darkest  portion  of  the  work  of  our  fathers  ; 
for  it  does  happen  that  these  very  conflicts  of 
opinion  in  regard  to  the  constitutional  law  in 
this  land  spring  out  of  the  weakest,  and  most 
imperfect,  and  obscurest  portions  of  the  instru- 
ment that  our  fathers  made. 

I  know  how  hard  it  is,  by  a  knowledge  of  my 
own  nature — I  know  how  hard  it  is  for  this  false 
pride  of  ours  to  surrender  in  a  moment,  and  es- 
pecially to  surrender  upon  demand.  There  is  a 
rebellious  spirit  in  man  which  fortifies  error,  be- 
cause pride  of  intellect  is  at  last  a  great  conserva- 
tive faculty  of  the  human  mind.  Without  it  no 
man  has  ever  made  his  mark  in  this  world.  It  is  a 
law  of  genius  and  of  mind  to  have  pride  of  intel- 
lect. God  Almighty  implanted  this  principle  in  the 
human  heart,  and  it  is  intended  to  be  auxiliary  of 
the  virtues;  but,  like  every  other  quality  which  is 
given  us,  it  may  be  abused,  and  our  own  experi- 
ence of  ourselves  teaches  every  man  who  makes  an 
analysis  of  his  own  nature,  that  this  great  con- 
servative power,  without  which  the  intellect 
would  be  scarcely  anything,  is  susceptible  of 
abuses. 

Pride  of  opinion  is  surrendered  reluctant- 
ly by  men  in  the  very  moment  of  of  triumph, 
and  more  reluctantly  still  when  they  are  ap- 
proached in  the  character  of  menace,  and  are 
asked  absolutely  to  surrender  that  ground.  I 
know  that  will  be  the  trouble  down  here  South, 
and  I  know  that  is  the  trouble  North.  Our 
Southern  brethren  will  have  to  go  through  that 
process,  in  order  to  come  back  into  this  Union. 
They  will  feel  that  consistency  is  a  virtue;  that  it 
is  a  jewel  almost  inestimable,  as  our  Northern 
friends  will  likewise  feel.  But,  gentlemen  of  the 
North  and  of  the  South,  to  that  complexion  you 
must  come  at  last.  There  is  no  resisting  an  irre- 
sistible, logical  event.  You  must,  both  of  the 
North  and  of  the  South,  give  up  your  error,  and 
in  making  the  sacrifice  you  ennoble  yourselves, 
because  it  is  a  sacrifice  laid  upon  the  altar  of 
your  country's  peace  and  prosperity. 

But  let  us  look  at  this  Territorial  question  for 
a  few  moments.  I  say  some  of  our  errors,  or 
troubles,  rather,  and  dogmatic  opinions,  have 
sprung  from  constructions  of  the  Constitution 
arising  out  of  those  portions  of  the  instrument 
which  are  most  obscure.    That  is  emphatically 


true  of  the  Territorial  question.  When  Louisiana, 
our  first  Territory,  was  acquired  by  Mr.  Jeffer- 
son, he  had  serious  scruples  about  the  constitu- 
tionality of  the  act.  Mr.  Jefferson  was  a  profound 
statesman  and  philosopher;  although  he  had  no 
part  in  making  the  Constitution,  for  he  was  then 
our  Minister  to  Paris,  watching  the  throes  of  the 
French  revolution,  and  he  had  many  notions 
about  the  Federal  Government  which  were  en- 
tirely wrong;  and  one  of  the  most  interesting  ex- 
hibitions of  the  influence  of  mind  upon  mind  in 
the  correction  of  error  is  furnished  by  the  corres- 
pondence between  him  and  that  very  unostenta- 
tious statesman  who  lived  twenty  miles  from 
him,  at  Montpelier,  James  Madison.  The 
objections  that  Mr.  Jefferson  made  to  the 
Federal  Constitution  were  numerous ;  but 
read  the  correspondence  between  those  two 
great  men,  and  you  find  that,  one  by  one,  his  ob- 
jections are  overthrown,  and  finally,  when  Mr. 
Jefferson  took  his  seat  as  President  of  the 
United  States,  although  he  had  been  previously 
intoxicated,  as  it  were,  with  ideas  peculiar  to 
himself,  and  fascinated  with  the  grave  conver- 
sations of  the  savans  of  France,  on  the  nature 
of  Government,  which  he  deemed  worthy  of 
a  place  side  by  side  with  the  dialogues  which 
come  down  to  us  from  Greece  and  Rome, 
and,  although  in  many  respects  he  was  a  theo- 
retical and  speculative  statesman,  yet,  to  his 
honor  and  glory  be  it  said,  that,  whenever  he  oc- 
cupied the  seat  of  power  and  had  practically  to 
dispense  the  powers  of  an  Administration,  he  was 
one  of  the  greatest  and  most  practical  statesmen 
of  the  age.  He  knew  how,  at  any  moment,  in 
his  administrative  career,  to  sacrifice  a  dogma 
and  theory  to  the  actual  behests  of  the  Constitu- 

;  tion  and  his  duty  as  public  administrator. 

As  I  have  already  said,  when  we  acquired  the 

!  Territory  of  Louisiana  by  treaty  from  Bonaparte, 
he  was  clearly  of  opinion  that  the  acquisition  was 
unconstitutional,  that  the  Constitution  authorized 
the  General  Government  to  make  no  acquisition 
of  territory;  but,  before  this  necessary  country 
could  be  added  to  our  Union,  that  it  was  essential 
there  should  be  a  Convention  of  the  States  to 
change  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States,  and 
to  make  the  admission  legal.  Such  was  his 
idea;  and  although  the  Convention  never  was 
called,  though  Mr.  Jefferson  thought  it  necessary; 
though  the  statesmen  of  this  country  acquiesced 
in  the  coercing  necessity  of  the  times,  and  let 
Louisiana  in  without  a  change  in  the  Constitu- 
tion, yet  the  fact  shows  that  the  Constitution  in 
that  respect,  was  not  deemed  by  the  men  of  the 
Revolution  to  be  clear  and  explicit.  Mr.  Jeffer- 
son thought  it  denied  the  power  entirely.  But 
from  that  period  of  time  to  this,  we  have  been 
using  it  by  a  construction.  Some  undertake  to 
derive  it  from  the  power  to  admit  States.  Others 
say  that  there  is  no  proper  and  legitimate  source 


201 


to  derive  the  power  from.  Others  say  that  it  springs 
from  the  rules  and  regulations  which  Congress  has 
a  right  to  make  in  regard  to  Terriiorics.  That, 
again,  is  ignored  by  others,  and  in  the  main  our 
statesmen  have  come  to  the  conclusion  that,  if  we 
have  the  power  at  all,  it  springs  from  the  power 
of  acquisition  and  implications  that  follow  the 
right  to  acquire.  I  say,  therefore,  in  all 
charity,  in  all  friendship,  that  the  difference  of 
opinion  upon  this  constitutional  point,  is  not 
necessarily  an  evidence  of  a  want  of  patriotism, 
and  one  of  the  objects  of  this  National  Conven- 
tion ought  to  be  to  put  that  power  down  in  plain 
terms.  For,  although  the  question  now  in  regard 
to  the  territories  is  the  slave  question,  in  the  pro- 
gress and  the  march  of  empire  in  this  country, 
when  we  shall  be  a  hundred  States  and  not  thirty- 
four,  when  one  hundred  glittering  stars  shall  shine 
upon  our  National  banner,  where  only  thirty-four 
now  shed  their  lustre;  in  the  changed  complexion 
of  society — for  society  is  always  changing,  espe- 
cially if  it  be  a  society  of  progress — some  new 
question  may  arise  in  regard  to  this  power  that 
has  no  odor  or  tint  of  slavery  upon  it.  It  may  be 
a  Mormon  question,  or  a  Coolie  question,  or  some 
question  of  which  I  would  not  dream  now,  but 
one  object  of  the  National  Convention  ought  to  be 
to  lay  down  clearly,  and  not  leave  to  the  con- 
struction, of  partisans  the  quantum  of  power  in 
the  General  Government  in  regard  to  these  Terri- 
tories. 

Now,  the  Chicago  Platform  says  that  the 
Congress  has  the  power  to  prohibit  slavery 
in  the  Territories.  Let  us  be  fair  and  just.  I  once  en- 
tertained that  opinion  myself;  I  entertained  it  for 
twenty  years ;  I  learned  it  from  such  men  as  Clay 
and  Webster.  I  learned  it  from  every  great 
man  who  figured  in  our  annals  for  the  last 
thirty  years.  They  all  affirmed  the  power, 
but  all  of  them  denied  the  propriety  of  its 
exercise.  The  Chicago  Platform  says  that  the  pow- 
er exists  in  Congress.  Mr.  Webster  took  the  extra- 
ordinary ground  upon  this  proposition— and  when 
he  took  it  I  began  to  fear  I  was  not  right  in  my 
opinion— and  he  was  not  alone  in  it — that  the 
Territories  were  never  governed  by  the  Constitu- 
tion at  all;  that  from  the  earliest  moment  of 
acquisition  up  to  the  period  in  which  he  spoke, 
Congress  had  never  governed  the  Territories  ac- 
cording to  the  Constitution.  I  was  startled  at 
the  result  of  that  opinion,  because  it  brought  me 
to  this  idea.  Here  is  a  Government  of  limited 
power,  supreme  within  its  sphere  of  action,  that 
has  the  exercise  of  a  power  without  bound.  I 
therefore  thought  there  was  something  wrong.  I 
studied  the  antagonistic  ideas  of  Mr.  Calhoun, 
whose  subtlety  of  intellect  always  puzzled  mine, 
and  sometimes  did  much  more,  I  think,  that  is, 
deceived  itself.  But  the  result  of  my  own  in- 
vestigations upon  the  subject— and  as  a  lawyer, 
studying  the  thorny  pathways  which  carry  men 


over  the  conflicts  of  individuals  with  the  Govern- 
ment, it  being  my  duty  to  understand  something 
about  the  nature  of  our  Government — was  that 
there  was  a  power  in  the  General  Government  to 
prohibit  slavery  in  the  Territories.  But  I  never 
thought  it  was  a  power  which  should  be  exercised, 
and  when  the  Dred  Scott  decision  came,  I  had  to 
be  a  convert  to  the  views  delivered  by  Justice 
Taney.  But  I  was  a  convert,  and  I  was  a  sincere 
convert.  He  satisfied  me  of  my  error,  and  he  has 
made  an  argument  that  I  think  cannot  be  over- 
thrown. He  has  settled  the  power  in  the  General 
Government  to  regulate  the  Territories.  That 
far  I  always  went.  But  as  to  the  quality 
of  that  power,  he  has  shown  the  error  of  the 
teachings  of  Mr.  Webster.  It  had  to  receive 
the  limitations  in  the  Constitution  itself,  it  was 
not  to  be  a  vagrant  power  turned  loose  careering 
where  it  may,  and  doing  what  it  choose — but  a 
power  capable  of  doing  what  it  says,  and  to  be 
fenced  in,  and  limited,  and  restricted,  like  all 
the  other  powers  of  that  instrument,  and  by 
the  terms  of  that  instrument;  so  that  I  am 
perfectly  satisfied  that  the  General  Government 
has  no  power  to  prohibit  slavery  in  the  Territor- 
ies. I  am  satisfied  beyond  all  question  that  it  has 
the  power  to  regulate  the  Territories,  and  to  give 
them  government,  but  that  it  has  no  power  under 
the  limitations  of  the  Constitution  to  deprive  a 
man  of  either  life,  liberty  or  property,  without 
the  judgment  of  his  peers  or  the  law  of  the  land, 
and  therefore  there  is  no  power  in  that  Gov- 
ernment to  confiscate  any  property,  or  disturb 
any  legal  relations,  existing  in  the  States,  whether 
it  be  that  of  husband  and  wife,  parent  and  child, 
master  and  apprentice,  or  owner  and  slave. 

But  while  these  are  my  convictions,  I  am  perfect- 
ly willing  to  admit  that  a  man  may  be  honest  and 
patriotic  also,  who  entertains  an  antagonistic  idea, 
because  the  question  is  one  about  which  not  only 
may  the  human  mind  honestly  differ,  but  touch- 
ing which  the  greatest  statesmen  and  jurists  of  the 
country  have  differed,  and  have  differed  for  forty 
years,  and  in  any  adjustment  that  I  Avill  offer  to 
make  with  our  Northern  brethren,  and  with  the 
Republican  party— for  I  speak  of  the  Republican 
party,  giving  them  prominence,  not  with  any 
view  to  impugn  them,  but  because  they  are  a 
party  who  constitute  a  large  portion  of  the 
people  with  whom  we  have  to  make  this 
adjustment.  I  shall  not  ask  a  surrender  of 
the  pride  of  opinion,  I  shall  not  ask  anything 
that  is  inconsistent  with  the  honor  of  a  Republi- 
can, or  any  Northern  man.  A  great  many  men  in 
this  country,  and  especially  men  who  are  clam, 
orous  for  the  preservation  of  the  Union,  declare 
they  love  their  rights,  but  I  do  not  knoAV  any  of 
them  that  are  not  willing  to  surrender  two-thirds 
of  them  at  a  jump.  They  must  have  their 
rights,  they  say.  Therefore  they  go  for  the  Crit- 
tenden resolutions.    Well,  what  are  your  rights? 


202 


The  Dred  Scott  decision  says  you  have  the  right 
to  carry  slavery  into  all  the  Territories.  And 
now  you  are  perfectly  willing  to  surrender,  to  a 
prohibition  that  will  cover  two-thirds  of  the  Ter- 
ritories.   But  you  will  have  your  rights. 

I  wonder  what  these  gentlemen  thought  about, 
the  time  that  Oregon  was  organized.  We  are 
discussing  now  the  abstract  question  of  power. 
Can  Congress  prohibit  slavery  in  the  Territories  ? 
Congress  never  did  it  but  once,  and  that  was 
when  Oregon  was  organized.  That  was  our  Ter- 
ritory. It  was  the  right  of  every  Southern  man, 
South  Carolinian,  Floridian,  Mississippian,  Ala- 
bamian,  Louisianian  and  Texan,  to  carry  slaves 
into  Oregon.  But  yet  here  is  Congress,  both  in 
the  Lower  House  and  Senate,  passing  the  bill, 
and  with  the  sanction  of  the  President,  they  or- 
ganized one  of  our  Territories,  with  the  Wilmot 
Proviso,  declaring  that  slavery  shall  never  exist 
in  that  Territory.  What  is  the  reason  we  did  not 
secede  then  ?  What  is  the  reason  there  was  not 
a  clamor  for  our  rights  then  ?  If  this  thing  be 
one  of  principle,  why  did  not  we  make  a  clamor 
about  it?  Why  did  we  not  secede,  and  take  the 
United  States  forts  and  arsenals,  &c?  Why 
didn't  we  seduce  the  allegiance  of  an  officer  of 
the  army  ? 

In  looking  over  this  broad,  wonderful  country 
of  ours,  there  are  some  spots  that  excite  a  pain- 
ful emotion  in  my  mind.  Somewhere  in  Texas 
there  is  a  place,  small  in  geographical  position, 
that  is  called  the  Alamo.  I  know  it  by  history  as 
the  scene  of  a  bloody,  inhuman,  uncivilized, 
savage  massacre,  in  which  individual  heroism 
was  slaughtered  by  brutal,  ferocious  and  reck- 
less power;  and  now,  as  if  Providence  determined 
that  such  a  place  should  never  be  forgotten,  how- 
ever insignificant  in  point  of  form,  it  is  the  pre- 
cise place  at  which  the  laurels  that  were  growing 
green  upon  one  of  the  hoary  veterans  of  this 
country,  all  turned  to  ashes  in  an  hour,  every 
twig  and  branch  fading. 

But  why  was  it  that  when  Oregon  organized, 
the  South  did  not  rise  in  indignation  ?  Why  was 
the  principle  violated  if  that  is  our  right  ?  I  will 
tell  you  why,  and  I  only  mention  it  because  it 
furnishes  the  solution  of  our  remedy  in  this  case, 
a  remedy  consistent  with  the  honor  of  every  man 
in  this  land,  whether  of  the  North  or  of  the 
South.  We  made  no  quarrel  about  Oregon,because 
we  knew  that,  practically,  no  man  would  ever 
carry  a  slave  to  Oregon,  and  therefore  the  parch- 
ment on  which  the  Wilmot  Proviso  was  written, 
was  not  worth  the  material  that  had  to  be  used  in 
writing  it.  And  so  now  I  hold  in  re- 
gard to  our  Territories,  whenever  there  is 
any  Territory  in  which  slavery  won't  go, 
practically  by  natural  laws,  it  is  idle  to  make  a 
quarrel  about  it,  and  it  is  worse  than  idle  to  at- 
tempt to  break  up  a  government,  in  regard  to  the 
question  whether  there  shall  be  a  Wilmot  Provi- 


so or  not.  And  one  of  the  madnesses  of  the 
madness  of  the  times,  in  the  South  as  well  as 
the  North,  is,  that  there  are  dogmatic  opinions  in 
connection  with  this  question.  There  is  a  party, 
in  the  North,  who  insist  upon  the  Wilmot  Proviso 
upon  our  Territories,  where  a  Wilmot  Proviso 
can  never  practically  accomplish  anything;  and 
there  are  mad  men  in  the  South  who  insist  upon 
the  dogma  of  protection  where  there  can  never 
be  a  slave  to  be  protected. 

Why,  we  have  other  rights  besides  the  right  to 
carry  slavery  into  the  regions  where  no  sensible 
man  would  ever  think  of  carrying  one.  I  think 
we  have  the  right,  the  Constitutional  right 
of  all  men  South  to  cultivate  the  sugar  cane 
upon  the  highest  glacier  of  the  Rocky  Mountains ; 
I  do  not  doubt  it — and  do  it  by  slave  labor,  too, 
if  we  can.  I  think  if  our  territory  is  extended  to 
the  equinoctial  line,  we  should  have  the  Constitu- 
tional right  to  gather  icicles  upon  the  equator. 
There  is  not  a  political  doubt  about  our  Constitu- 
tional right.  But,  then,  may  I  go  and  destroy 
our  Government  because  I  maintain  this  right, 
and  some  man  denies  it?  And  yet,  Mr.  Presi- 
dent, I  would  rather  break  up  the  Government 
upon  a  point  such  as  that  than  upon  the  terri- 
torial question.  I  would  rather  break  up  this 
Government,  in  so  far  as  any  agency  of  mine 
is  concerned,  upon  the  abstract  right  to  cultivate 
sugar  cane  upon  the  Rocky  Mountains,  or  gather 
icicles  upon  the  equator,  than  upon  this  territorial 
question,  because  I  would  know  that  if  posterity 
thought  of  one  so  humble  as  I,  they  would  say, 
instead  of  having  a  right  to  speak  with  any 
potent  voice  in  favor  of  my  country,  I  ought  to 
have  been  under  lock  and  key  of  a  lunatic  asylum, 
so  that  I  would  stand  vindicated  to  posterity  from 
my  action  on  the  ground  that  I  was  not  respon- 
sible for  what  I  did. 

He  must  be  anything  but  a  patriot  who  says, 
"  I  so  strongly  believe  in  the  power  and  duty  of 
the  General  Government  to  prohibit  slavery,  that 
I  won't  consent  to  the  organization  of  any  terri- 
tory without  that  prohibition.  I  would  not,  if  it 
were  on  the  highest  point  of  Mont  Blanc,  where 
nothing  could  grow  and  nothing  could  live  but 
the  chamois,  and  every  once  in  a  while  a  hunter 
was  seen,  painfully  tracking  his  path  over  hollow 
and  steep.  I  will  never  consent  that  anything 
shall  be  organized,  unless  there  is  a  positive  pro- 
hibition of  the  right  to  carry  slaves."  I  say,  he 
must  be  anything  but  a  patriot;  but  I  put  him 
precisely  in  the  same  position  and  category  of  a 
gentleman,  who,  in  the  South,  says,  "I  will  break 
up  this  Government,  unless  I  can  have  my  rights, 
and  among  them,  the  right  to  carry  slavery  where 
I  know  I  never  will  carry  it." 

Some  gentlemen  say  to  me,  now,  Major  Wright, 
don't  be  too  hard  upon  the  Republicans,  and 
don't  be  too  hard  upon  seceders.  And  other  gen- 
tlemen say  to  me,  I  hope  that  in  your  speech  this 


203 


evening,  you  will  give  the  seceders  a  lick;  and 
another  says,  hit  him  again,  provided  you  are 
striking  at  a  Republican.  [Laughter.]  I  have 
no  sympathy  with  any  such  suggestions— none 
whatever.  I  have  no  enmity  to  any  man  in  the 
United  States.  If  I  speak  harshly  and  bitterly, 
and  with  emphasis,  of  a  doctrine,  it  is  my  right 
to  do  it,  but  not  to  speak  disrespectfully  of  a  man 
who  entertains  that  doctrine.  I  speak  what  I 
think  of  the  doctrine  of  secession  and  its  errors. 
I  speak  as  I  think,  likewise,  of  the  doctrines  of 
the  Anti  Slavery  party,  but  kindly  to  both  par- 
ties and  in  a  fraternal  spirit;  and  that  is  the  pre- 
cise position  I  ought  to  occupy,  for  if  I  under- 
stand it,  Mr.  President,  we  are  to  be  mediators  in 
this  great  necessary  exigency.  Mediators  be- 
tween whom  ?  Now,  that  is  a  very  important  in- 
quiry. If  I  thought,  with  the  gentleman  from 
Jackson,  that  those  Southern  brethren  of 
ours  are  ind2pendent  States,  that  they  have 
set  up  a  successful  government  for  them- 
selves, that  they  are  no  longer  citizens  of 
these  United  States,  my  mode  of  treatment 
and  the  conduct  of  Missouri  towards  them  would 
be  very  different  in  point  of  fact  from  what  it  now 
ought  to  be.  But  I  am  willing  to  treat  them  still 
as  in  the  bonds  of  our  sisterhood,  as  within  the 
glorious  and  patriotic  circle  of  Union,  erring,  it 
is  true,  for  the  time  being,  because  provoked  by 
the  improper  action  and  wrongs  of  their  Northern 
brethren.  For  I  wish  it  to  be  distinctly  and 
clearly  understood  that  in  this  matter  of  difficulty, 
the  first  great  primary  wrong  is  in  the  North. 
That  has  led  to  errors  in  the  South.  And  now,  as 
mediators,  what  are  we  to  do?  Are  we  to  take 
side  with  either  party,  or  are  we,  in  the  spirit  and 
tone  of  friendship,  to  interpose  our  conciliating 
influence  between  the  two?  As  mediators 
must  we  not  go  to  the  North  and  say, 
here,  now  you  are  wrong — you  are  wrong  in 
this.  I  say  it  in  the  kindest  spirit  in  the 
world ;  I  know  you  have  got  some  apologies 
I  believe,  in  point  of  fact,  that  the  in  tenseness  ot 
the  excitement  arises  out  of  the  unfortunate  fact 
that  the  slavery  question  became,  in  1836,  for  the 
first  time  in  the  history  of  our  parties,  an  organic 
excitement,  by  being  blended  with  the  political 
parties  and  platforms  of  the  day,  and  hence  the 
antagoni-ms  that  arose,  by  making,  most  impro- 
perly, and  against  the  advice  of  the  wisest  men 
in  the  South,  the  slavery  question  one  of  the 
planks  of  political  platforms,  and  going  before 
the  country  upon  the  excitement  it  produced,  in 
order  to  lift  yourselves  into  power.  I  know  the 
nature  of  the  effect,  and  I  am  willing  to  allow  the 
influence  of  such  a  cause.  The  natural  effect  was 
to  bring  about  political  organizations  upon  the 
antagonistic  ideas  advanced  by  the  two  parties, 
and  they  used  the  elements  of  difference  as  well 
as  they  could.  I  believe  this  day  that,  but  for 
Southern  errors,  the  Republican  party  would  not 


be  in  existence.  I  believe  this  day  that  the  Re- 
publican party  owes  its  numbers  and  its  triumphs, 
not  because  of  hostility  to  slavery,  but  because  of 
the  idea  that  the  Southern  people  were  using,  or 
attempting  to  use,  the  General  Government  for 
the  purpose  of  extending  slavery7  in  the  United 
States.  The  Republican  party  cannot  stand  a 
day  upon  a  simple  antagonism  to  slavery. 
Its  power  arises  only  from  the  fact  that 
it  has  induced  the  Northern  people  to  believe, 
from  the  action  of  Southern  politicians,  that  they 
were  seizing  upon  the  Federal  power  to  advance 
and  extend  the  area  of  the  slaveholding  interests, 
independent  and  regardless  of  natural  laws,  those 
great  higher  laws  which  no  constitutions  can 
overthrow — the  law  of  sun  and  cloud,  moisture 
and  heat;  the  laws  of  physical  geography,  the 
law  of  production  and  the  law  of  temperature. 

Heaven  knows  there  are  enough  wrongs,  both 
North  and  South,  to  be  corrected.  But  it  is  not 
my  part  to  take  any  other  than  the  position  of  a 
mediator,  and  it  will  not  do  for  a  mediator  to  side 
either  one  way  or  the  other.  We  ought  to  pro- 
ceed in  the  very  spirit  of  impartiality — such  im- 
partiality as  a  man  can,  by  close  scrutiny  of 
himself,  and  a  just  and  comprehensive  view 
of  all  the  surrounding  circumstances,  exercise. 
We  ought,  as  mediators,  to  rid  ourselves  of 
every  influence  which  self  interest  might  improp- 
erly dictate,  and  go  North  and  South  and  shake 
hands  with  gentlemen  on  the  one  side  and  on  the 
other,  and  say,  you  are  both  wrong— you  are 
wrong,  and  especially  you  in  the  North,  because 
your  sisters  in  the  South  are  vulnerable.  In  this 
contest  you  are  armed  in  complete  mail,  with  no 
joint  or  crevice  to  leave  an  opening  for  a  wound, 
but  you  are  fighing  with  a  naked  adversary. 
There  is  no  power  in  the  South  to  hurt  your  insti- 
tutions, but  there  is  a  power  in  you  to  hurt  theirs. 
The  error  therefore  on  your  part,  is  greater,  by 
reason  of  the  inequalities  of  the  combat.  It  is  an 
unequal  contest.  I  would  not  desire,  Mr.  Pres- 
ident, to  give  the  slightest  countenance 
to  the  idea  that  prevails  with  some  men  of 
the  North,  encouraged  by  some  men  of  the  South, 
namely :  that  the  dangers  of  the  Southern  people 
are  as  great  as  they  have  been.  I  heard  a  gen- 
tleman not  more  than  a  hundred  and  twenty-five 
miles  from  this  spot,  and  very  near  or  in  the 
capital  of  my  State,  a  secession  man,  painting 
the  condition  of  the  slaveholding  States,  and  he 
said  of  it,  what  ?  He  said,  in  Missouri  and  in  the 
border  States,  it  was  a  small  thing  to  have  the 
institution  of  slavery  touched  or  menaced ;  but  it 
was  a  far  different  thing  in  the  South— that  there 
was  not  a  husband  or  a  father  that  lay  down  at 
night  in  the  extreme  South,  and  went  to  bed  with 
his  wife  and  little  ones,  without  the  conscious 
conviction  that  he  was  sleeping  on  a  powder 
magazine,  and  that  his  slumbers  at  any  mo- 
ment might  be  disturbed  by  the  torch  of  the  in- 


fc204 


cendiary,  producing  universal  combustion.  Is  that 
the  true  picture  of  our  condition?  If  it  is,  then 
every  man  South  should  move  heaven  and  earth 
to  get  out  of  this  Government.  But  it  is  false. 
It  is  an  exaggeration.  It  is  hyperbolical  imagery. 
It  is  false,  and  yet  there  are  men  in  the  North 
who  taunt  us  with  the  same  idea,  and  they  get 
their  color  and  support  for  it  by  injudicious  men 
in  the  South.  I  say  there  are  men  in  the  North, 
such  as  Wilson  of  Massachusetts,  and  Wade  of 
Ohio,  who  have  declared  that  the  South  cannot 
exist  out  of  the  Union;  that  the  Union  is  essen- 
tially necessary  for  her  preservation  and  the  pres- 
ervation of  her  domestic  peace;  that  the  danger 
of  servile  insurrection  is  such  that,  left  to 
herself,  she  would  be  destroyed,  and  that  noth- 
ing but  the  power  of  the  General  Govern- 
ment to  put  down  servile  insurrection  would  be 
competent  to  meet  the  dangers  of  her  situation. 
It  is  all  false.  It  is  all  hyperbolical  exaggeration. 
There  is  not  a  word  of  truth  in  it. 

I  have  lived  along  time,  Mr.  President. 
Born  in  Virginia,  I  have  lived  more  than 
half  a  century,  and  lived  a  good  deal  in 
that  time,  and  I  have  not  been  an  in- 
observant watcher  of  the  condition  of  public 
affairs  since  I  reached  manhood.  But  in  my  boy- 
hood there  were  more  insurrections  and  more 
feai-s  of  insurrections  than  exist  now.  Then  Ex- 
eter Hall  had  not  opened  its  floodgates  of  inflam- 
mation, nor  had  an  anti-slavery  society  existed 
in  the  world.  The  strife  of  parties  had  not 
brought  the  slavery  element  into  the  political  or- 
ganizations of  the  day.  There  is  less  fear  of 
slavery  insurrection  now,  and  there  is  less  cause 
for  it  now,  than  there  was  in  my  boyhood,  and 
the  reason  of  it  is  this :  in  proportion  as  you  turn 
a  black  man  into  a  civilized  man,  you  subjugate 
him  more  perfectly  to  the  will  of  his  master;  in 
other  words,  in  proportion  as  you  reduce  his  sav- 
age traits,  you  make  him  subject  to  the  will  of  a 
superior  race,  as  in  wild  animals  subjected  to 
the  taming  process— in  proportion  as  there  is 
moral  and  Christian  culture  in  this  barbarian, 
just  in  that  proportion  is  he  dominated  over 
peacefully  by  the  will  of  a  superior  race. 

Some  men  would  break  up  this  nation  because 
of  a  Montgomery  or  John  Brown  raid.  I  have 
only  a  few  words  in  regard  to  such  things  as  that. 
I  do  not  believe  there  is  a  Republican  in  the  land, 
of  any  standing  in  the  Republican  party,  who  is 
not  heart  and  soul  against  a  John  Brown  raid. 
But  I  will  say  to  you,  as  i  said  to  some  gentlemen 
in  Virginia,  in  the  Harper's  Ferry  District,  where, 
I  discover,  a  very  fine  Union  man  is  elected,  and 
a  distinguished  seceder  was  beat;  in  the  very  Har- 
per's district,  in  the  town  in  which  John  Biown 
was  hung ;  I  said  to  them,  I  was  very  sorry,  indeed, 
that  my  fellow  student  Wise,  the  Governor,  had 
put  the  old  Commonwealth  to  so  great  expense  to 
dispose  of  a  few  villains  and  murderers  and  trai- 


tors. I  was  sorry  that  he  organized  an  armed 
host  to  traverse  the  State,  and  made  the  most 
warlike  preparations.  I  said  that  if  this  scene  had 
occurred  in  Missouri,  we  would  have  dispos- 
ed of  the  question  in  a  summary  manner, 
and  would  have  complied  with  that  provision  of 
our  Consiitution  which  entitles  every  man  to 
speedy  justice.  No  court  would  have  been 
troubled.  No  armies  organized.  No  troops  raised. 
Nor  would  it  have  cost  the  State  a  single  cent,  be- 
cause the  only  instrumentality  that  would  have 
been  used  would  be  drawn  from  the  nearest  tree, 
and  that  there  was  not  a  man  in  it  that  would  not 
furnish  the  cord  or  raise  the  hemp  that  was  neces- 
sary to  the  dispensation  of  justice  in  the  case.  I 
scorn  the  idea  that  we  need  the  protection  of  the 
General  Government  to  defend  ourselves  against 
John  Brown  raids.  I  feel  humbled  and  humiliated 
that  any  such  doctrine  as  that  should  be  ad- 
vanced by  any  slaveholding  State  in  the 
Union.  We  are  able  to  protect  ourselves,  and 
the  only  reason  why  an  army  was  sent  recently 
to  the  frontier  to  put  down  a  Montgomery 
raid,  was,  that  there  was  no  Montgomery  raid  to 
put  down.     [Laughter.] 

I  think  I  have  in  the  main  gone  through  the 
evils  of  which  we  complain,  and  summing  them 
all  up,  you  discover  at  last  that  they  are  best  ex- 
pressed by  this  one  phrase — alienated  feeling, 
sundered  affections,  weakened  fraternal  love,  the 
absence  of  a  brotherly  spirit  between  the  mem- 
bers of  this  Confederacy.  Sir,  I  would  not  wish 
to  underrate  that  evil,  or  measure  it  below  truth's 
proper  scale.  It  is  a  great  evil;  it  is  a  moment- 
ous ill  on  the  people  who  are  to  live  together  by 
affection,  that  their  affection  should  be  sundered; 
and  the  greatest  part  of  the  evil  is  that  it  is  so 
difficult  to  restore  this  friendly  feeling  once 
more.  How  can  it  be  done?  What  are  the 
modes  of  restoring  the  affections?  I  had  some 
little  experience  in  one  department  of  the  affec- 
tions, and  I  know  this,  that  nothing  but  the  law 
of  kindness  has  ever  yet  been  efficacious  in  re- 
storing or  melting  together  the  several  parts  of  a 
whole  which  had  suffered  a  rupture.  I  know  that 
God  has  implanted  in  every  human  being  this 
principle,  that  the  heart  will  leap  kindly  back  to 
kindness,  and  I  know  that  unkindness  is  a  repel- 
ling power.  I  know  that  no  great  pacification 
ever  yet  was  made  by  either  force  or  intimida- 
tion. I  know  that  adjustment  never  yet  sum- 
moned such  handmaids  to  do  her  work.  I  know 
that  on  the  contrary  she  invokes  and  goes  forth 
alone  aided  by  one  single  spirit,  the  most  potent 
power  in  the  universe  to  accomplish  such  an  ob- 
ject, and  that  is  the  spirit  of  conciliation. 
I  do  not  think  it  incompatible  with  that 
spirit  that  I  should  say  to  the  North,  yon 
have  committed  error;  or  to  the  South,  we 
have  committed  error.  I  know  some  gentlemen's 
sympathies  are  with  the  North,  and  some  gentle- 


205 


men's  sympathies  are  with  the  South,  and  they 
become  a  little  uneasy  at  any  words  that  will  im- 
pute error  to  either  of  their  favorite  sections.  But, 
then,  that  disqualifies  you  for  the  work  of  media- 
tion. You  arc  not  an  effectual  mediator,  if  you 
get  yourself  in  such  a  morbid  condition.  You 
are  to  go  out  in  the  spirit  of  fairness — the  spirit 
of  justice — the  spirit  of  kindness;  and  in  all  that 
you  say  upon  this  subject,  you  should  struggle 
not  to  take  a  party  aspect  of  it,  and  you  should 
struggle  to  speak  and  write  what  the  calm,  im- 
partial spirit  of  history  will  write  in  regard  to  all 
our  troubles.  A  man  who  goes  out  in  such  a 
spirit  is  doubly  armed.  He  carries  with  him  a 
moral  power— the  great  omnipotent  power  of  the 
universe.  He  will  have  sway.  But  if  he  takes 
with  him  any  other  spirit  than  that,  if  he  takes 
with  hiin  the  spirit  of  a  partisan,  the  spirit  that 
has  no  sort  of  charity  for  the  errors  of  the  North 
or  of  the  South,  he  will  fail,  and  he  ought  to  fail, 
in  his  mission.  It  must  be  left  to  other  hands  to 
accomplish  it.    It  can  never  be  done  by  him. 

Look  at  some  striking  instances  in  which  this 
•spirit  of  pacification  has  been  successful  in  our 
country.  Turn  your  eyes  to  Ashland.  Catch  if 
you  can  the  spirit  of  him  whose  remains  lie  there 
in  honored  sepulture,  covered  by  the  marble  mon- 
ument which  gratitude  has  placed  upon  his 
grave,  and  around  which  clusters  the  love 
of  a  whole  people.  He  was  our  great  Pacifica- 
tor. How  did  he  succeed?  How  did  he 
succeed  in  this  Missouri  trouble,  which  was  the 
first  great  trouble  after  the  formation  of  this 
•Government?  What  spirit  did  he  show?  Now, 
any  man  that  knew  Henry  Clay,  knew  that  a 
loftier  soul  never  took  the  form  of  humanity — a 
spirit  prouder  of  its  independence  and  self-respect, 
•  and  holding  inviolate  the  rights  .of  individuals  as 
well  as  nations.  Now,  he  is  in  Congress.  Mis- 
souri knocks  -at  the  door  for  admission.  She 
knocked  a  long  time,  and  it  seemed  as  though  she 
'would  be  shut  off.  Strife  ran  high.  The  Union 
was  upon  the  brink  of  dissolution.  Now,  mark 
the  course  of  Clay— of  that  noble  man,  born  in 
■^irginiux,  the  mill-boy,  the  poor  boy  who  labored 
I  hard  for  his  livelihood — the  young  man  who 
istartedout  without  education,  to  the  wilds  of  the 
"Wast,-  and  whose  sotil  was  fashioned  and  moulded 
upon -a  < large  and  sublime  scale  in  the  majestic 
solitudes  Of  this  country.  But  he  had.no  educa- 
tion. The  ^Representative  from  Roanoke  was  a 
finished  scholar.  .Here,  in  the  halls  of  that  Con- 
gress, day  af.er  day,  occasion  upon  occasion,  that 
man  would  rise  v;ith  his  withering  sarcasm  and 
taunt  the  Speaker  of  the  House  .with  a  slip  in 
I  grammar,  with  a  pronunciation  that, shocked  his 
i  nervous  system.  He  ^was  led  on  by  a  gloating 
;  and  reckless  amMtioo.  He  had  fixed  bis  eyes  in  , 
early  youth,  out  in  the ftfron tiers,  upon  the  Presi- ' 
dency,  and  never  lost  sight  of  it,  and  always, 
counted  and  gibed  the  ncble-minded,  grestrstatcs- 


man  of  the  West,  so  that  there  was  no  personal' 
intercourse  between  them.  Every  chord  of  asso- 
ciation was  sundered.  But  now  a  country  is 
to  be  saved.  A  compromise  is  to  be  effected.  What 
does  Henry  Clay  do?  He  takes  his  carriage  in 
in  the  twilight  of  some  evening.  He  understands 
that  the  great  difficulty  in  the  way  of  adjustment 
is  that  man,  John  Randolph.  He  has  not  spoken- 
to  him.  But  now,  for  his  country's  sake,  he  bows 
his  soul.  His  lofty  nature  bends  because  his 
country  demands  it.  He  takes  his  carriage  and 
drives  to  the  door  of  Mr.  Randolph,  and  gives  his 
card,  saying,  "Henry  Clay  of  Kentucky  wishes 
to  see  John  Randolph  of  Roanoake,  upon  a  ques- 
tion of  the  country's  peace."  He  is  admitted. 
There  is  an  interview  betwen  the  men,  and  in 
twenty  minutes  afterwards  a  paper  is  borne  by  the 
statesman  of  the  West  written  by  John  Randolph  of 
Roanoke,  and  in  an  hour  the  troubles  of  the  country 
are  brought  to  an  end.  He  was  too  big  a  man  to 
sacrifice  his  country  to  any  personal  considera- 
tion. He  knew  what  was  the  true  character  of  a 
great  pacificator,  and  he  knew  the  means,  the 
only  means  by  which  pacification  could  be 
brought  about.  He  repeated  the  noble  example 
in  the  contest  of  1832  to  1833,  when  the  relations 
of  Calhoun  and  Clay  were  sundered.  Another  con- 
sultation with  Mr.  Calhoun,  his  personal  enemy, 
another  personal  interview  sought  by  him,  not 
by  Calhoun,  and  another  great  attempt  to  save 
the  country,  by  sacrificing  personal  considera- 
tions to  the  weal  of  the  whole.  No  one  who 
knows  the  relations  then  existing  between  him 
and  Calhoun,  can  underrate  the  greatness  of  the 
•sacrifice.  But  he  never  failed.  No  man  ever 
will  fail  who  comes  in  this  spirit,  and  uses  such 
agencies  and  instrumentalities  of  power.  More 
than  that,  no  man  ever  can  succeed  who  does  not. 
What  are  our  prospects  for  a  compromise? 
What  hopes  are  before  us?  You  have  seen  the 
stand  taken  by  Arkansas.  You  know  what  North 
Carolina  has  done.  She  has  decided  against  a 
Convention.  North  Carolina  and  Arkansas  have 
said,  the  mad  waves  of  secession  shall  not  over- 
whelm us.  We  stay  this  tide.  We  are  strug- 
gling for  our  rights  in  the  Union,  and  we  will 
stand  by  the  border  States.  But  there  is 
a  sectional  President  in  power.  Have  we 
any  hopes  of  him?  He  is  a  Republican. 
He  has  a  divided  Cabinet.  Some  are  cons  rvative 
men,  some  are  radical.  What  are  the  the  pros- 
pects before  us.?  Well,  now,  first  let  me  say, 
that,  although  suicide  is  getting  to  be  epidemic 
I  have  no  idea  at  all  that  this  Administra- 
tion is  going  to  commit  suicide.  I  have  no  idea 
the  Republican  party  intend  to  destroy  them- 
selves. But  I  give  it  credit  for  great  shrewdness 
and  tact.  There  is  one  man  in  that  Cabinet  that 
sees  all  these  struggles  in  their  actual  practical 
import.  I  think  there  are  one  or  two  men  in  it 
•vwho  ha^re  not  the  remotest  idea  at  all  of  the  actu- 


206 


al  condition  of  public  affairs.  There  is  no  reli- 
ance to  be  placed  upon  tliem.  But,  as  I 
said,  there  is  one  man  in  that  Cabinet  who  sees, 
with  the  vision  of  entire  coolness,  the  whole  scope 
of  our  political  horizon,  and  knows  what  the  ac- 
tual condition  of  this  country  at  this  hour  is,  and 
that  man  is  Seward.  He  is  not  going  to  destroy 
himself.  He,  in  common  with  the  Republican 
party,  want  to  perpetuate  themselves.  They  do 
not  wish  to  be  mere  ephemerals  that  live  an  hour 
or  a  day,  but  they  want  to  perpetuate  themselves 
and  establish  a  Republican  dynasty,  after  the 
fashion,  at  least  in  duration,  of  the  defunct 
Democratic  dynasty  that  has  gone  by  the 
board.  Well,  how  can  they  do  so  if  the 
Union  is  broken.  If  the  border  States  go 
out  what  becomes  of  the  Republican  party?  It 
dies  instanter,  for  the  very  moment  that  the  bor- 
der States  leave  this  Union  there  is  no  longer  any 
distinctive  characteristic  belonging  to  the  Repub- 
lican party,  at  least  on  the  slavery  question,  and 
they  have  to  take  their  chances  with  the  people 
of  the  North  in  a  new  confederacy,  and  get  up 
issues  leaving  out  the  element  of  slavery  agita- 
tion. 

In  any  aspect,  therefore,  in  which  you  can  view 
this  question,  it  appears  to  me  manifest  that  this 
Administration  is  not  going  to  commit  suicide. 
They  are  going  to  preserve  this  Union,  and  they 
can  only  do  it  by  making  an  adjustment  with  the 
border  States.  And  when  such  an  adjustment  is 
made,  satisfactory  to  the  honor  and  interest  of 
these  States,  all  men  will  be  without  excuse  if 
they  do  not  join. 

But  let  us  see  what  has  been  the  practical  ope- 
ration of  the  Republican  party  in  the  last  Con- 
gress. This,  you  will  say,  is  a  speculation  of  mine. 
But  let  me  point  your  attention,  especially,  my 
very  clear-headed,  and,  if  you  permit  me  to  say 
so,  my  very  eloquent  friend  from  Lewis.  Permit 
me,  since  you  are  under  a  lively  apprehension 
touching  the  action  of  the  Republican  party,  and 
since,  especially,  you  dread  their  dogma,  the 
Wilmot  Proviso,  to  call  your  attention  to  the 
actual  conduct  of  this  Republican  party  in  Con- 
gress, since  the  period  when  they  have  had  all 
the  power.  When  our  Southern  brethren  aban- 
doned us,  and  left  us  alone  to  fight  their  battles 
on  the  strongholds  of  the  Constitution,  what  re- 
sult did  they  bring  upon  us  ?  If  they  had  stayed, 
this  Administration  would  have  been  powerless. 
Two  departments  of  the  Government  would  have 
been  against  the  Administration — Congress  and 
the  Judicial  department.  The  Senate  would  have 
been  against  him,  the  House  would  have  been 
against  him,  and  the  Supreme  Court  would  have 
been  against  him.  What,  then,  could  he  do  un- 
der our  form  of  Government?  Where  was  the 
source  of  any  actual  danger?  Is  any  gentle- 
man afraid  ?  What  is  he  airaid  of  ?  What  are 
our  remedies?    Can  we  guard  against   danger 


which  may  be  threatened  to  bring  upon  us?  Yes, 
no  law  can  be  passed  that  is  hurtful  to  us.  If 
an  unconstitutional  law  were  to  pass,  the  Su- 
preme Court  would  denounce  it.  He  was  elected 
by  an  accident — he  was  elected  by  the  blunders  of 
his  adversaries — by  the  erroneous  manner  in 
which  the  campaign  was  fought  ?  gainst  him. 
We  made  his  victory  easy,  although  he  was  a 
minority  President.  He  took  advantage  of  our 
error,  and  he  got  into  power,  and  now  there  he  is 
powerless.  He  cannot  make  a  Cabinet 
minister  unless  you  elect  him.  Ho  cannot 
make  an  appointment  to  any  office  of  high 
grade  without  your  say-so.  If  the  Southern 
States  had  not  gone  out,  all  the  States  that  op- 
posed his  election  might  have  conferred  with 
each  other  as  to  what  were  the  actual  evils  to 
complain  of.  They  might  have  met  in  a  body 
through  their  commissioners,  and  set  out  in  wri- 
ting what  they  thought  were  their  grievances, 
and  what  they  held  to  be  the  proper  means  of  re- 
dressing them.  Had  there  been  such  counsel  as 
that,  no  such  complication  would  have  arisen  as 
when  Georgia  sent  her  ambassador  here.  I  strug- 
gled then,  because  I  wanted  to  receive  him,  to  get 
this  Convention  to  adopt  a  resolution  which 
would  have  enabled  every  man  in  this  body 
to  have  listened  to  him  with  pleasure,  and 
to  practice  towards  him  all  the  courtesies 
due  to  the  representative  of  a  sister  State.  I 
wanted  them  to  adopt  a  resolution  that  this  sister 
of  ours,  whether  she  thought  so  or  not,  was  our 
sister  still ;  and,  being  one  of  the  family,  she  had 
a  right  to  talk,  and  talk  to  all  the  family.  But  it 
was  determined,  under  the  genius  of  precipitancy 
and  hot  haste,  to  do  otherwise. 

I  hear  a  great  deal  said  about  coercion.  Un- 
doubtedly, we  are  against  coercion.  It  is  not 
right  that  the  Federal  Government  should  force  a 
State  into  submission.  But  do  gentlemen  con- 
sider the  coercion  which  is  used  against  us  ?  The 
only  real  coercion  that  has  been  used  in  these 
troubles  has  been  used  by  the  South  against 
us.  I  will  say  nothing  now  about  those  acts 
of  war  of  which  some  of  the  Southern 
States  have  been  guilty  and  which,  if  commit- 
ted by  an  independent  foreign  nation,  would 
hare  fired  this  nation  from  one  end  to  the  other  : 
of  the  firing  on  our  flag;  the  seizing  of  our  forts; 
of  the  capture  of  our  treasury;  of  taking  the  ju- 
risdiction of  the  Mississippi.  All  these  are  really 
acts  of  war  against  the  Government  of  the  United 
States;  and  yet  that  Government,  with  a  forbear- 
ance that  is  parental  and  benign,  and  worthy  of 
all  commendation,  has  said  nothing  in  return, 
but  has  used  the  magnanimity  which  can  be 
rightly  used  by  a  great  Government  towards  it3 
citizens  —  has  been  doing  what  Edmund 
Burke  asked  of  Lord  North,  in  the  time 
of  George  the  Third,  to  do  towards  these 
colonies.    This  Government  has  thus  far  acted  in 


207 


the  spirit  of  conciliation.  It  has  forhorne; 
it  has  not  undertaken  to  resist  force  by  force,  he- 
cause  I  suppose  there  is  no  doubt  of  it  in  the 
world  that  every  act  committed  by  our  Southern 
brethren,  and  especially  the  act  of  organizing  a 
government,  and  taking  jurisdiction  of  the  Mis- 
sissippi river,  and  seizing  the  forts,  are  all  acts  of 
war,  which  would  not  be  tolerated  by  this  Gov- 
ernment if  practiced  by  any  nation  upon  the 
face  of  the  earth.  But  it  was  not  of  that  partic- 
ularly that  I  wish  to  speak.  I  wish  to  speak  of 
another  sort  of  coercion  that  has  been  practiced 
towards  us,  and  I  fear  it  was  intended — I  mean 
the  coercion  arising  from  holding  such  views  as 
these : 

"Well,  now,  it  is  idle  to  dispute  about 
secession,  or  the  right  of  secession. — 
The  fact  is,  South  Carolina  has  gone;  and  then 
Alabama  says,  the  fact  is,  South  Carolina  has 
gone,  and  Ave  may  as  well  go  also.  And  little 
Florida  said  she  would  go  too,  and  so  of  the  rest. 
All  these  are  facts,  and  must  be  treated  as  facts." 
Well,  what  is  the  meaning  of  that?  Why,  the 
logical  sequence  is,  that  the  fact  is  to  operate  on 
us  to  determine  our  action.  In  other  words,  we 
are  to  do  now  what  we  would  not  have  done,  or 
thought  of  doing,  unless  these  examples  had  gone 
before  us.  I  say  that  is  practical  coercion.  Then, 
again,  their  resolves  in  regard  to  the  internation- 
al slave  trade,  cutting  it  off  and  not  letting  us  car- 
ry our  negroes  among  them.  That  is  coercion 
likewise,  and  it  is  unfriendly  coercion,  it  is  unsis- 
terly.  But  let  it  pass.  I  dismiss  the  whole  sub- 
ject of  coercion  upon  the  ground  that  we  live  in  a 
Government  in  which  no  great  results  can  ever  be 
brought  about  by  the  exercise  of  power. 

Now,  after  the  South  abandoned,  us  leaving  the 
Federal  Government  in  the  possession  of  the  Re- 
publican party,  what  has  that  party  done?  My 
friend  from  Lewis  said  it  had  not  abandoned  the 
Chicago  platform.  He  ought  to  take  that  back, 
because  it  is  not  just.  You  remember  that, 
at  the  last  session  of  Congress,  there 
was  a  little  sprinkling  of  slavery  in  New  Mexico, 
created  there  by  Territorial  Legislation  for  the 
especial  benefit  of  the  officers  of  the  army,  who 
wishing  body  servants  to  go  with  them  when 
they  were  ordered  into  the  Territory,  and  had 
no  power  to  refuse,  desired  them  to  clean  their 
boots,  brush  their  clothes,  and  attend  to  other 
work  of  that  sort,  and  they  took  their  slaves,  and 
as  some  of  them  had  been  sued  for  taking  slaves 
where  the  laws  had  prohibited  slavery,  the  Ter- 
ritorial Legislature  recognized  slavery  for  the 
special  accommodation  of  those  officers.  Now, 
one  of  the  parties  in  the  Lower  House  of  Con- 
gress, in  accordance  with  the  platform  made  in 
Chicago,  moved  to  repeal  that  law,  and  they  did 
repeal  it.  The  Senate  rejected  the  measure. 
This  was  before  the  Presidential  victory  had 
been    achieved.    But  since  that  victory,  seeing 


that  they  have  the  whole  power  of  the  Govern- 
ment in  thir  hands,  thev  have  organized  three 
Territories,  two  of  them  south  of  Oregon,  and 
yet  no  man  of  the  Republican  party  has  risen  in 
that  body,  either  in  the  Senate  or  the  Lower 
House  to  attach  a  Wilmot  Proviso  to  an  act  of 
organization.  What  does  that  prove?  Is  not 
that  a  surrender  of  the  party  platform  ?  Is  not 
that  a  patriotic  evidence  of  a  disposition  on  their 
part  to  meet  the  issue  in  the  spirit  of  kindness? 
They  had  the  power,  why  didn't  they  use  it?  If 
you  say  that  the  action  of  the  South  nrobably 
has  scared  them;  very  well  I  do  not  care  what  is 
the  cause.  If  you  put  it  down  to  the  ignoble  sen- 
timent of  fear  and  not  of  patriotic  inspiration, 
be  it  so.  But  the  fact  is  nevertheless  that,  with 
the  power  in  their  own  hands,  they  have  organ- 
ized three  Territories,  and  they  have  just  done  it, 
and  two  of  them  are  south  of  Oregon,  and  no 
Republican  in  the  Senate,  not  even  Wade,  nor 
Hale,  nor  the  radical  Sumner,  nor  the  clear- 
sighted, far-seeing  Seward,  nor  Lovejoy  in  the 
Lower  House — whom,  by  the  by,  I  don't  regard  as 
a  Republican  at  all,  but  as  belonging  to  the  school 
of  Wendell  Phillips  and  Lloyd  Garrison— has  risen 
to  ask  that  a  Wilmot  Proviso  be  attached  to  the 
act.  I  think  it  is  a  clear  and  unmistakable  evi- 
dence of  a  disposition  on  their  part  to  surrender 
dogmas  to  the  welfare  and  the  peace  of  their 
country, 

On  motion  of  Mr.  Watkins,  the  Convention 
adjourned. 


SIXTEENTH  DAY. 

St.  Louis,  March  19th,  1861. 

Met  at  10  o'clock. 

Mr.  President  in  the  Chair. 

Prayer  by  the  Chaplain. 

Journal  read  and  approved. 

Mr.  Weight.  Mr.  President — I  am  admon- 
ished, by  several  considerations,  to  be  as  brief  as 
possible  in  the  remarks  I  feel  it  my  duty  to  offer 
to  the  Convention  this  morning.  First  of  all,  I 
find  the  instrument  of  language  perishing — that 
my  voice  is  failing;  and  then,  again,  I  know  I 
have  occupied,  largely,  the  attention  of  this  body, 
and  I  feel  a  delicacy  that  every  gentleman  will  at 
once  appreciate— in  occupying  so  much  of  your 
time,  when  there  are  other  wise  and  patriotic  gen- 
tlemen who  have  minds  to  think  and  lips  to  utter. 

To  me,  one  of  the  most  alarming  signs  of  the 
times,  in  the  way  of  doctrine,  is  the  idea  that  has 
been  suggested  by  our  Republican  friends  of  the 
North,  touching  the  re-organization  of  the  Su- 
preme Court.  Now,  I  don't  attach  much  import- 
ance to  the  mere  fact  that  the  Republican  party 
hold  that  the  decisions  of  the  Supreme  Court  are 


208 


not  binding  upon  all  departments  of  government; 
for  we  know,  historically,  that  that  was  the  pre- 
cise position  taken  by  Jefferson,  and  followed  by 
Jackson.    In  the  days  of  the  Hero  of  the  Hermit- 
age, whose  spirit,  I  trust,  is  exercisiug  an  active 
Solicitude  in  behalf  of  a  country  he  loved  and 
tried  to  preserve — in  behalf  ©f  that  Union  touch- 
ing which  he  uttered  a  sentiment  that  struck 
every  patriotic  heart  in  this  land— it  is  well  known 
that  during  his  administration  he  took  the  ground 
and    his     supporters    took    the     ground,   that 
While  the  decisions  were    binding  in    all    cases 
that  went  before  that  tribunal  for  judgment,  yet 
those  issues  were  not  binding  upon  the  co-ordi- 
nate departments  of  Government.    If  our  Repub- 
lican friends  had  stopped  there — although  I  think 
that  doctrine    erroneous—yet  it  would   not   be 
alarming,  except  for  the  supplemental  idea  that 
it  is  the  duty  of  the  Republican  party  to  reorgan- 
ize the  Supreme  Court.    I  call  the  attention,  in  a 
friendly  spirit,  of  the  conservative  Republicans  in 
the  country,  and  such  as  arc  in  this  body,  to  the 
kind  and  character  of  that  organization.    If  I  un- 
derstand it,  it  is  a  revoluiionary  idea— revolution- 
ary, I  mean,  in  the  sense  that  it  wholly  changes 
the   character    of  our    Government.      The  re- 
organization    is     to     be     effected     by   obtain- 
ing judges    from  the   different  sections    of  the 
country,  and  making  a  judiciary  of  the  United 
States  representing  the  wishes  and  will  of  the 
people  of  the  different  sections  of   the  country. 
Now,  Mr.  President,  I  take  it  to  be  a  very  clear 
idea  of  constitutional  law,  that  all  political  agents 
do  represent  the  will  of  their  constituents.    And 
in  all  matters  not  contrary  to  the  fundamental  will 
of  the  people,  as  expressed  in  their  fundamental 
charter,  the  Constituiion,  that  will  is  entitled  to 
great  respect,  and  sometimes  to  perfect  obedience; 
but  in  what  proper  sense  can  it  be  said  the  Judi- 
ciary are  representing  the  will  of  anybody  ?  They 
represent  nothing,  except  it  be  the  law,  and  it  can 
not  be  said  they  represent  that,  because  they  ut- 
ter that  and  administer  it.    The  moment  a  judge 
upon  the  bench  looks  to  the  will  of  his  people  in 
the  administration  of  the  laws  of  this  Govern- 
ment, that  moment  he  is  unfit  to  occupy  a  seat. 
If  he  deliberately,  in  ad  ministering  the  law,  consid- 
ers himself  the  representative  of  a  sectional  in- 
terest—that very  moment  he  ought  to  be  hurled 
from  power  by  impeachment.    I  say,  therefore, 
I  want  my  Republican  friends  to  reconsider  that 
utterance,madc  in  a  distempered  heat  of  an  excited 
political  canvass,  because  if  they  will  examine 
it,  they  will  discover  it  revoln;  ionizes  the  very  na- 
ture of  our  Government,    popularizes    the  Su- 
preme Court,  changes  its  character  entirely.  Who 
that  has  pointed  to  that  tribunal    in  its  silent 
workings,  to  that  power  serene  and  calm,  but  has 
not  felt  a  pride  in  1  he  fact  that  popular  conflict 
could  never  be  made  the  instrument  of  its  de- 
struction. 


Reorganize  the  Supreme  Court  upon  a 
a  sectional  idea— I  don't  care  whether  North  or 
South — and  it  would  lose  all  its  efficacy  and 
virtue;  it  would  be  subjecting  it  again  to  a  con* 
flict  of  opinion  upon  a  sectional  issue.  And  in- 
stead of  a  great  body,  entitled  to  the  respectful 
judgment  of  mankind,  whose  decisions  would  be 
quoted  as  authority  on  this  or  any  other  side  of 
the  Water,  it  would  descend  to  the  mere  partizan 
tribunal  representing  sectional  interests,  and 
become  a  mere  political  instrument.  I  take  it, 
Mr.  President,  that  is  not  the  intention  of  the  Ju- 
diciary, and  6ueh  an  invasion  of  the  powers  of 
the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States  Avould 
be  contrary  to  the  design  of  our  fathers  who  or- 
ganized it. 

Now,  Mr.  President,  with  the  indulgence  of  the 
Convention,  I  will  add  a  few  words  upon  what  I 
regard  to  be  an  important  first  principle  to  be  re- 
spected and  followed  in  all   our   actions  here.    I 
have  endeavored  to  show  that  the  right  of  seces- 
sion is  not  only  a  heresy,  but  that  it  furnishes  no 
remedy  for  our  ills ;  it  aggravates  them— it  breaks 
up  the  Union  which  is    hallowed  by  the  martyrs 
and  which  ought  to  be  immortal.    But  is  there 
no  other  right  by  which  a  people  under  oppres- 
sion may  throw  off  that  oppression  and  build  up 
a  government  for  themselves  to  accomplish  the 
object    desired?    Surely     there    is,     and    that 
is    the    sacred  right   of  revolution.    But  is  that 
an  unlimited    power  ?    May  that  be  exercised  at 
the  mere  whim  and  caprice   of  men    who    are 
restive  under  the  law  ?    Are  all  revolutions  j  ustifi- 
able?    Can  men  revolutionize  whenever  they  feel 
like  it  ?    Is  that  the  law  of  revolution  ?    I  submit 
respectfully  that  it  is  not;  that  in  no  civilized  na- 
tion now  is  it  regarded  in  that  way.    It  being  a 
great,  a  terrible  and  a  sublime  power,  it  cannot 
range  without  fetters.    Every  enlightened  nation 
in  the  world  sees  that  a  limitation  must  be  put 
upon  this  sacred,  terrible  and  sublime  right  of 
revolution.    Our  British  ancestors  recognized  that 
principle,    although  they  lived  in  a  monarchy 
where  the  popular  fiction  said  the  King  can  do 
no  wrong,  and  where  the  other  fiction  prevailed 
that  Parliament  was  omnipotent.    Even  in    that 
country,  resting  under  a  throne  and  governed  by 
a  Parliament  who  made  the  laws,  still  our  an* 
cestors,  prompt  to  use  the  power  of  revolution, 
always  recognized  the  power  of  limitation  upon 
that  power.    Our   fathers   who  broke  from  the 
British  crown,   or  rather  who  went  from    that 
country,  when  attached  to  the  crown,  came  to 
these  shores,  and  brought  with  them  as  a  consti- 
tution, this  conservative  position — that  the  right 
of  revolution   must   have  limitation;   and    they 
added  another  limitation  peculiar  to  our  Ameri- 
can insti  uiions — they  put  another  discriminating, 
intelligent  limitation  upon  the  right  of  revolu- 
tion, unknown  in  any  other  country — because  in 
making  their  Constitution,  they  provided  in  the 


209 


very  instrument  which  founded  the  Government,  a 
means  of  correcting  the  evils  of  its  actual  work- 
ing.   Revolution  in  this  country  ought  not  to 
begin  with  the  sword.      The  revolutionary  feel- 
ing cannot  lawfully  make  its  first  expression  a  re- 
sort to  arms.    There  must  be,  says  Madison — it  is 
a  distinguishing  characteristic  of  our  institutions, 
said  that  father  of  the  Constitution,  that  we  have 
found  out  positively  a  method  of  correcting  the 
revolutionary  spirit  without  a  resort  to  force,  or 
the  shedding  of  blood;  that  we  have  found  a 
certain  defined  instrumentality  by  which,  with- 
out any  sword  leaping  from  its  scabbard,  or  any 
gun  bursting  in  air,  we  can  correct  the  evil  and 
put  down  oppression,  and  cure  public  disorders 
and  ills.    And  that  is  the  manner  in  which  they 
have  provided  for  amendments  to  the  Constitu- 
tion of  the   United  States.    In    all  cases  of  the 
practical  workings  of  that  instrument,  the  hopes 
of  those  who  made  it  have  not  been  disappointed. 
Now,  Mr.  President,  can  we  condescend   to 
give  respect  for  this  important  limitation  ?    Can 
we,  with  a  proper  regard  for  the  men  who  made 
this  matchless  and  unequalled  instrument — can 
we  think  of  ever  using  the  revolutionary  right 
until  we  have  exhausted  all  the  limitations,  all 
the  remedies    for   the  correction  of  evils,  that 
are  provided  for  in  the  instrument  itself  ?    Is  it 
not  one  of  the  worst  signs  of  the  times,  that  the 
revolutionizing  spirit  is  encouraged  by  our  men, 
and  especially  our  young  men — that  they  cannot 
think  of  exercising  a  virtue  of  patience  which  at 
this  time  is  at  least  apolitical  necessity;  that  they 
cannot  think  of  exercising  such  a  virtue  as  that, 
because  their  sensibilities  are  wounded;  because 
they  fear  there  will  bo  some  imputation  upon 
their  courage  and  bravery;  because  they  think 
they  must  show  a  disposition  to  refute  all  wrong, 
and  because  they  cannot  be  patient  under  suffer- 
ing.   What  ills  does  the  Constitution  provide  a 
remedy  for?    Does  it  provide  for  all  public  disor- 
ders?   Has  it  omitted  any?    Has  it  not  looked 
over  the   whole   scope  and  horizon    of    possi- 
ble    events,     and      guarded     against     every- 
thing?   I    know   of    but   one  thing   they  were 
unable  to  provide  for;  I  know  but  one  thing  they 
have  not  provided  for,  and  that  is  voluntary  and 
causeless  suicide.    That  was  a  thing  their  pres- 
cience and  forecast  and  their  statesmanship  could 
not  regulate.    Everything  else  is  provided  for. 
The  ordinary  evils  of  government  are  provided 
for  by  checks  and  balances  in  the  system.    Look 
at  that  wonderful  frame  of  government,  and  see 
how  strongly  the  checks  and  balances  are  provid- 
ed, and  the  objects  of  those  checks  and  balances. 
Why  is  it  that  a  member  of  Congress  can  serve 
only   two  years?     Why  does   a  Senator   serve 
but   six    years,    and   why  does   the  President 
serve  but  four  years,  and  why  does  the  Judiciary 
serve   only  during    good  behavior?     What  is 
the  reason  of  the  difference  in  tenure  of  a  Sena- 


tor and  Congressman  ?  Why  do  they  put  them 
upon  these  short  terms  ?  Was  it  not  for  fear  on 
account  of  the  lack  of  good  behavior?  Do  the 
practical  workings  of  the  Government  show  that 
their  theory  was  right,  if  they  had  a  theory  which 
they  reduced  to  practice?  All  governments,  says 
Marshall,  are  based  upon  the  idea  that  limitation 
is  necessary  to  the  healthful  exercise  of  their 
functions,  for  we  have  to  distrust  men  and  politi- 
cal agents.  If  we  suspect  them  of  wrong,  we 
must  put  limitations  on  their  power.  Our  fathers 
thought  every  member  of  Congress  would  do 
wrong;  and  because  they  thought  the  President 
would  do  wrong,  because  they  thought  the  Judges 
of  the  Supreme  Court  would  do  wrong,  they  put 
limitations  upon  their  power,  so  that  the  people, 
the  source  of  all  power,  should  have  the  right  in 
their  own  hands  to  correct  these  evils,  and  not 
suffer  for  a  long  time  under  the  practices  of  a 
bad  government.  If  Congress  goes  wrong,  the 
ballot-box  is  the  power  by  which  they  are  to  be 
turned  out  and  better  men  put  in  their  places.  If 
Senators  have  a  little  more  of  what  is  called  in 
these  days  back-bone  or  vertebra?  in  their  politi- 
cal organizations,  to  stand  out  a  little  longer 
against  the  popular  will;  if  they  can  stand  out 
four  years  more  than  the  Lower  House,  still 
whenever  they  become  misrulers,  they  are  turned 
to  the  people,  who  speak  through  their  agents, 
and  by  which  these  men  can  be  hurled  from  pow- 
er. Look  at  the  President.  He  lives  four 
years— not  so  long  as  the  Senators 
by  two  years,  and  two  years  longer  than  a 
member  of  the  House.  Of  course  he  remains 
only  four  years,  because  the  original  hypothesis 
is  that  he  will  do  wrong,  and,  therefore,  that  he 
shall  not  have  the  power  to  do  wrong  more  than 
four  years.  But  in  the  meantime  he  shall  be  sub- 
ject to  limitations.  The  Judiciary  may  sit  for  a 
life  time,  but  not  a  day  longer  than  they  behave 
themselves.  Now,  this  being  the  theory  by  which 
the  ordinary  misrule  of  government  maybe  rem- 
edied, let  us  look  at  its  practical  operation.  Mr. 
Lincoln  is  elected  by  a  minority  of  the  people  of 
the  United  States ;  but  men  have  gone  into  the 
Presidential  chair  by  a  large  and  overwhelming  ma- 
jority of  the  people  of  the  United  States,  and  such 
is  the  admirable  superstructure  of  our  Government 
a  President  has  always  found  himself  checked  by 
the  co-ordinate  departments  of  the  Government. 
Jackson  whon  he  went  into  power,  found  the 
Senate  against  him,  and  could  not  make  his  or- 
dinary appointments.  Day  after  day  he  would 
send  in  nominations,  and  day  after  day  they 
would  be  rejected.  You  all  remember  the  strug- 
gle that  tcok  place  in  connection  with  Hill,  of 
New  Hampshire,  who  had  been  appointed  to 
some  office  by  Jackson.  Again  and  again  was 
he  black-balled  by  the  Senate,  until  Jackson  had 
to  give  in.  Hill  went  off  to  New  Hampshire, 
where  he  was  elected  to  a  seat  in  the  Senate  of 

14 


210 


the  United  States.  On  the  day  he  took  his  seat; 
the  public  mind  was  curious  to  know  how  such  a 
man  as  that  could  take  his  seat  in  the  Senate. 
Some  one  asked  Mr.  Breckinridge,  a  gentleman 
who  served  with  Jackson  in  the  Florida  war, 
what  he  thought  about  it.  "  Oh,"  he  replied, 
"the  Senate  have  disgraced  Mr.  Hill,  and  now,  I 
suppose  he  is  determined  to  disgrace  the  Senate." 
[A  laugh.]  You  know,  in  point  of  fact,  the  ac- 
tion of  Jackson's  administration  was  "back-ac- 
tion." He  was  continually  at  war  with  both 
houses  of  Congress,  notwithstanding  which,  the 
people  were  ready  to  sustain  him.  I  mention 
this  matter,  to  show  you  the  admirable  framing 
of  our  Government;  by  which  it  is  provided,  in 
point  of  fact,  that  a  majority  President  can- 
not misrule.  Mr.  Fillmore  was  check-mated 
during  his  administration  by  the  lower  House. 
John  Adams  is  the  only  President  I  know  of, 
in  all  our  political  history,  who  went  into 
power  with  all  departments  of  Government 
in  his  favor— the  Senate,  the  Lower  House 
and  the  Judiciary.  And  now,  mark  the  remedy 
furnished  for  the  flagrant  misrule  of  his  adminis- 
tration. During  his  time,  they  passed  the  sedi- 
tion law,  likewise  the  alien  law,  which  gave  birth 
to  those  resolutions  of  1798  and  1799 — those  re- 
markable State  papers  so  variously  construed  all 
through  the  United  States,  which  our  Democratic 
friends,  wherever  they  meet  in  council,  con- 
strued alike — but  finding  it  necessary  that 
there  should  be  a  plank  in  their  platform,  they 
adopt  in  their  obvious  meaning,  feeling  perfectly 
sure  that  if  any  one  undertook  to  explain  their 
meaning,  an  adversary  would  rise  up  and  slay 
him.  When  the  law  was  passed  which  made 
it  a  crime  to  speak  disrespectfully  of  the  President 
of  the  United  States,  what  was  done?  Judge 
Chase  left  the  Supreme  bench,  and  went  cavort- 
ing into  Maryland  and  Virginia,  trying  men  who 
had  violated  this  law,  Judge  Chase,  backed  by  the 
power  that  gave  birth  to  that  law,  went  off  to  en- 
force it,  and  it  was  enforced.  The  case  of  Mat- 
thew Lyons  is  a  leading  instance  in  this  respect. 
Men  were  imprisoned  and  fined,  but  the  judg- 
ments were  not  executed.  Well,  what  did  the 
people  do?  Did  they  secede?  Did  they  talk 
about  the  right  of  eminent  domain?  Did  they 
capture  the  mints  ?  Did  they  seduce  the  officers 
of  the  army  from  allegiance  to  the  country?  Did 
they  organize  a  Provisional  Government?  No. 
They  just  exercised  the  power  given  in  the  Con- 
stitution—the power  of  the  ballot-box— and  away 
went  John  Adams,  and  away  went  the  Congress, 
and  away  went,  in  a  short  time,  the  Judiciary, 
and  Chase,  himself,  was  impeached. 

Now,  the  question  of  that  hour  was  not  wheth- 
er men  had  the  right  to  carry  slaves  into  the  Ter- 
ritories ;  it  was  not  whether  men  had  the  right  to 
reclaim  a  fugitive  slave.  But  the  question  was 
whether  they  would  be   slaves  themselves,  or 


I  whether  they  would  take  the  remedy  provided  by 
our  fathers,  and  effect  a  perfect  cure  for  the 
whole  disorder. 

I  know,  Mr.  President,  our  complications  now 
are  not  like  those,  but  I  know  the  remedy  to  cor- 
rect the  present  disorders,  and  appeal  to  it — a 
remedy  which  was  designed  by  the  framers  of 
the  Constitntion  to  cure  every  ill,  and  to  provide 
for  everything  but  a  causeless  and  wicked  sui- 
cide. 

What  is  it  a  National  Convention  can  correct? 
Some  gentlemen  say  they  are  afraid  to  trust  a 
National  Convention — that  the  people  of  the 
North  have  got  the  power  and  can  vote  us  down, 
and  refuse  to  give  us  satisfaction.  That  is  true ; 
but,  on  the  other  hand,  they  may  do  everything 
we  want  done.  They  have  the  power  to  do  so,  and 
they  are  the  only  people  who  have  the  power, 
and  one  of  two  courses  is  inevitable— either 
break  off  from  the  Government,  and  follow  the 
action  of  our  sisters  whom  we  say  are  acting 
wrong,  or  go  to  the  fountain  head  that  corrects 
all  evils.  If  they  will  give  us  satisfaction  who 
will  complain?  What  heart  will  complain? 
If  they  refuse,  can  we  be  in  a  worse  situ- 
ation than  now?  I  say  to  the  gentleman 
from  Marion;  and  I  could  point  to  one  or 
two  other  gentlemen  also;  I  say  to  them,  if  seces- 
sion be  a  right,  it  will  do  to  keep.  It  won't  spoil. 
We  shall  have  as  good  a  chance  to  use  it  in  one 
year,  or  two  years,  as  now,  and  in  the  mean- 
time we  can  be  getting  ready  for  it,  and 
preparing  to  use  the  remedy.  Now,  by  these 
remarks  I  don't  mean  that  secession  is 
the  proper  remedy,  for  I  hold  that  in  exercising 
it  we  should  be  guilty  before  the  world  in  setting 
an  example  by  which  all  future  governments 
must  be  destroyed.  There  is  however  the  right 
of  revolution,  but  before  we  can  exercise  this 
right  we  must  take  preliminary  steps  in  the  ex- 
ercise of  constitutional  remedies.  I  see  that  Vir- 
ginia has  intimated  in  a  report  from  a  committee 
in  her  Convention— the  chairman  of  which  was 
an  old  student  of  mine  in  New  York,  forty  years 
ago.  Mr.  Conrod,  a  gentleman  who  resides  at 
Harper's  Ferry,  within  a  few  miles  of  where 
John  Brown  and  his  compeer  patriots  were 
hung — this  report  from  the  committee  of 
which  he  is  chairman,  suggests  the  pro- 
priety of  a  Border  State  Convention  at 
the  city  of  Frankfort,  Ky.,  towards  the  last  of 
May.  I  trust  that  we  shall  all  vote  to  communi- 
cate with  these  Border  States.  But  we  can't  stop 
there.  That  would  not  be  final,  for  at  last,  by 
whatever  route  we  travel,  whether  in  .  a  straight 
line  or  a  circumbendibus— whatever  course  we 
go,  at  last  we  must  reach  a  National  Convention. 
There,  our  trouble  will  be  brought  to  a  head; 
there  we  will  know  whether  we  can  live  together 
in  peace,  or  whether  we  shall  have  to  separate 
peaceably  or  forcibly.    Now  I  do  not  suppose 


211 


anybody  here    doubts  the   unequivocal   nature 
of  my  allegiance  to  my  country.    I  have  loved  it 
from  my  boyhood  to  my  manhood,  as  the  only 
stronghold  of  liberty  on  earth.    All  my  hopes  are 
wrapped  up  in  it.    I  believe  the  hopes  of  human- 
ity are  centred  in  it,  but  I  know  well  enough — 
for  I  see  the  characteristics  of  the  times— I  know 
that  an  adjustment  is  a  positive  and  indispensa- 
ble necessity,  and  there  is  no  man  in  this  country 
who  has  brains,  but  must  accord  to  the  senti- 
ment that  an  adjustment,  a  fair  and   honorable 
adjustment,  an  adjustment  fair  to  the  North  and 
fair  to  the  South,  is  an  indispensable  necessity. 
"We  have  presented  as  a  basis  of  adjustment  the 
Crittenden  resolutions.    In  a  conference  of  the 
Border  slave  States  our  mutual  counsels  may  re- 
sult in  something  different  from  the  Crittenden 
resolutions,  because  the  Crittenden  resolutions  are 
nothing  more  nor  less  than  a  means  to  an  end, 
and  we  are  seeking  to  reach  that  end.    I  was  at 
first  opposed  to  the  calling  of  any  preliminary 
convention,  because  it  is  extra  constitutional.    It 
is  not  one    of   the  remedies  provided    for,   al- 
though there  is  nothing  in  the  Constitution  that 
forbids  such  a  remedy.    It  is  merely  a  discussion 
or  an  association  of  mind  with  mind,  directed 
to  the  public  ills  and  a  means  of  pacification.    I 
was  at  first  opposed  to  it,  because  I  thought  that 
we  should  move  directly  up  to  our  Northern 
brethren  in  the  form   and  manner  which  was 
strictly  Constitutional,  and  which  would  be  final, 
and  the  only  method  by  which  we  could  perma- 
nently adjust  our  sentiments.  But,  I  believe  upon 
reflection,  it  is  wiser  to  take  a  Border  Convention, 
especially  for  this  reason :  that  there  is  a  little 
difference   as  to    what  are  the   causes  of  our 
troubles.    If  South  Carolina  were  to  write  down 
her  cause,  it  would  not  be  our  cause.    We  know 
South  Carolina  goes  out  of  this  Union,  not  by 
reason  of  any  trouble  about  the  slavery  agitation, 
but  she  goes  out  upon  the  idea  that  the  revenue 
system  of  the  United  States  has  worked  aggres- 
sively upon  her.    For  thirty  years  her  agents — 
and  such  men  as  McDuffie — have  been  striving 
against  the  forty  bale  theory  as  it  is  called,  a  the- 
ory by  which,  as  South  Carolina  thinks,  the  Gov- 
ernment of  the  United  States  gets,  and  the  North 
gets,  or  that  South  Carolina  loses,  and  somebody 
gets,  forty  bales  of  cotton  out  of  every  hundred 
raised  in  South  Carolina;   and  if  it  were  true,  it 
would  be  an  oppression  which  no  people  could 
bear,  for  it  is  taxing  the  people  heavily,  and  to 
escape  such  an  oppression,  they  would  be  justified 
in  resorting  to  revolution  if  there  could  be  no 
amendment  to  the  Constitution,  or  if  their  oppres- 
sion could  not  be  remedied  by  Constitutional 
means. 

I  am  afraid  if  the  Gulf  States,  the  cotton 
States,  were  called  on  to  write  their  grievances, 
they  might  not  be  what  we  would  write.  What 
did  Yancey  mean  by  saying  in  that  remarkable 


letter  of  his,  that  he  was  "anxious  to  precipitate 
the  cotton  States  into  a  revolution  ?"  Why  the 
cotton  States  ?  Why  not  all  the  slave  States  ?— 
Why  did  his  scope  of  vision  contemplate  with 
pleasure  and  complacency  such  a  result  as  the 
precipitation  of  the  cotton  States  into  a  revolu- 
tion? Think  of  that.  It  was  one  of  the  troubles 
at  our  efforts  at  pacification,  and  it  will  be  one  of 
the  troubles  in  bringing  them  back,  because  I  see 
clearly  that  their  idea  is  to  secure  the  breadstuff's 
and  provisions  of  the  valley  of  the  West,  and  get 
their  manufactured  goods  from  England.  There 
is  the  whole  desire.  That  is  the  desire  and  that 
is  the  wish  that  precipitated  the  cotton  States  into 
a  revolution.  It  will  be  a  formidable  idea  to  meet 
in  a  re- adjustment.  These  people— I  mean  the 
leaders  —  have  been  in  earnest  about  this 
matter  for  a  great  many  years.  The  idea  started 
in  South  Carolina,  under  the  dominion  and  power 
of  such  minds  as  McDuffiie,  Calhoun  and  Hayne. 
It  has  exhibited  itself  in  various  ways — in  the 
establishment  of  a  Southern  commerce  as  a  lival 
to  the  centralization  of  commerce  in  New  York. 
I  wish  to  say  I  have  no  disposition  to  prevent  our 
Southern  brethren  from  endeavoring  by  enter- 
prise, legislation  and  capital,  to  change  the  chan- 
nels of  the  commerce  of  the  United  States,  if  all 
is  done  in  harmony  with  the  Constitution  of 
the  country  and  violates  no  law.  I  should  like  to 
see  a  great  commercial  emporium  rising  up  on 
the  Atlantic  sea  board  of  the  South.  I  would  be 
pleased  to  see  it,  as  large  benefits  would  result 
to  us  in  the  West,  we  people  of  Missouri  and  St. 
Louis,  by  opening  a  new  channel  for  the  trade  of 
Europe,  and  by  decreasing  the  monopolizing 
power  of  centralization  in  the  bay  of  New  York. 
I  know  the  people  of  the  West  and  the  South, 
are  paying  brokerage  to  the  people  of  N.  Y.,  and 
have  been  for  years.  They  are  the  money 
changers,  and  get  millions  from  us  in  the  South 
in  the  way  of  exchange.  Look  at  the  difference 
between  exchange  sterling  in  New  Orleans  and 
New  York.  It  is  6  per  cent,  at  New  Orleans  and 
9  per  cent  at  New  York.  And  why  ?  Because- 
the  demand  for  exchange  sterling  is  small  at 
New  Orleans,  and  great  at  New  York.  But  I  do 
not  want  these  benefits  to  be  brought  about  at 
the  expense  of  the  Constitution  of  my  country, 
or  at  the  sacrifice  and  dissolution  of  this  Govern- 
ment. Still,  in  spite  of  the  temptation— the  glitter- 
ing temptation  of  a  Southern  Republic,  whose 
basis  is  cotton,  and  whose  policy  is  free  trade 
with  Europe,  and  provisions  from  us — notwith- 
standing the  glittering  and  fascinating  character 
of  that  government  so  founded,  I  am 
satisfied  if  we  do  our  duty  and  the 
North  discharges  its  duty,  that  ephemeral 
power  will  fade  away  into  thin  air,  dissolved 
by  the  dews  of  patriotism.  They  will  come  back 
because  the  difficulties  are  so  great.  All  govern- 
ments are  difficult  in  erection;  it  is  a  much  easier 


212 


task  to  pull  down  than  to  build  up.    Our  South- 
ern brethren  are  beginning  to  find  this  out.    Lou- 
isiana is  this  day  debating  where  she  shall  go — 
whether  she  shall  stand  by   herself  or  enter  a 
Provisional  Government.    Look  at  her  secession 
and  Union  papers,  and  there  you  Avill  find  a  won- 
derful concurrence  of  opinion  about  the  propri- 
ety of  considering  Avhere  they  arc  to  go.    When- 
ever Louisiana  begins  to  hesitate — after  she  has 
yielded  to  this  tempest  of  secession — where  she 
is  going,  there  is  no   doubt   about  where  she 
will  go.      She  will   not  go  at    all.      She   will 
simply  come  back.     She  knows  there  are  other 
difficulties  which  she  would  have  to  meet  as  an 
independent  government.    She  is  at  the  mouth 
of  the  Mississippi,  and  knows  the  necessity  of 
this  great  valley.    She  knows,  likewise,  that  the 
people  of  this  valley  will  never  permit  her  to  take 
jurisdiction  of  that  stream,  however  mildly  she 
may  be  disposed  to  exercise  that  power.      It  is 
one  of  the  impossibilities  of  her  geographical 
position.    Again,  the  position  occupied  by  that 
government  makes  extraordinary  demands   on 
her  people :  export  duties  on  cotton,  a  standing  j 
army,  taxation  never  felt  before  by  the  people,   ; 
and  murmurs  arising  from  taxation.      Taxation  ; 
is  the  almost  universal  source  of  revolution. — 
Taxation  has  made  revolution  the  world  over. 
As  soon  as  the  sensitive  pocket  nerve  of  the 
people  is  touched,  as  the  hand  goes  down  deeper 
and  deeper  to  meet  the  exigencies  of  the  govern-  j 
ment,  the  people  will  begin  to  think  of  their  con-  j 
dition  before  they  swung  from  the  Union.    Every  j 
man  will  be  prepared  to  speak  to  his  neighbor  of  | 
the  state  of  things  that  previously  existed,  and  a  I 
patriotic  feeling  will  set  in  which  will  hurl  their  i 
oppressors  from  power,  just  as  the  Missouri  river,  ! 
where  it  meets  with  the  Mississippi,  hurls  upon  j 
the  opposite  shore  the  more  peaceful  waters  of  j 
the  Mississippi.    But  the  government  at  Mont-  j 
gomcry  is   not  the  only  government  that  is  in  j 
trouble.    The  Government  at  Washington  is  in  I 
trouble.    It  is  a  very  easy  thing  to  talk  about 
coercion,  but  the  difficulty  presents  itself  at  last 
that  you  must  come  down  to  constitutional  means 
to  accomplish   that   object;   and  the  more  the 
Cabinet  studies  the  matter,  the  more  they  will  j 
perceive     the     impediments     thrown    in     the 
way   of    recklessness,    if    recklessness    is    the 
desire.  I  am  glad  of  it.  If  my  old  friend  Lincoln 
—whom  as  a  man  I  greatly  respect — for  whose 
intellect  I  have  had  a  regard  and  have  still,  in 
spite  of  his  itinerant  speeches — if  he  would  give 
me  his  ear,  and  my  voice  would  have  any  influ- 
ence, I  would  tell  him,  Withdraw  your  forces  from 
Sumter ;  don't  collect  the  revenue,  you  cannot  do  it  ; 
it  cannot  be  done  unless  you  change  your  laws ;  you 
have  got  no  warehouses  to  meet  the  demands  of 
the  importer;  if  he  says  I  will  put  my  goods  in 
bond,  you  cannot  do  anything.    A  multitude  of 
agents  would  have  to  be  created  to  carry  it  into 


effect,  and  it  would  result  in  a  dead  loss  and 
bankruptcy  to  those  who  look  upon  this  as  a 
means  of  filling  the  empty  coffers.  Don't  you 
think  Seward  sees  it?  There  is  not  a  man  in  the 
United  States  with  a  farther  vision  than  that  man 
Seward.  He  has  great  vision  and  ambition— he 
is  ambitious,  as  every  such  man  must  be  by  a  law 
of  nature;  for  genius  has  a  principle  implanted  m 
it  that  is  not  content  with  the  men  of  its  own 
time,  but  has  its  eyes  always  on  posterity;  no 
great  man  in  this  world  has  ever  made  his  mark 
upon  the  age  in  which  he  lived,  that  he  did  not 
likewise  make  it  upon  after  ages,  and  knew  he 
would  make  it  upon  after  ages.  No  man  ever 
felt  his  aspirations  bounded  by  the  age  in  which  he 
lived;  and  these  great  aspirations  are  put  into  the 
mind  as  a  conservative  power,  because  genius 
speaks  by  the  soul,  and  that,  too,  after  the  body 
that  held  it  moulders  into  dust;  you  cannot  sat- 
isfy this  genius  without  giving  it  to  posterity, 
and  it  is  this  that  has,  in  all  ages,  made  genius 
conservative.  I  wish  I  had  the  power  to  pur- 
sue this  line  of  thought.  I  wish  I  could  get 
rid  of  the  impression,  likewise,  that  I  am  occupy- 
ing too  much  of  your  time.  But  there  is  another 
subject  upon  which  I  have  thought  a  great  deal,and 
touching  which  I  have  a  conviction  that  I  deem 
of  importance,  and  that  I  must  try,  at  least,  to 
deliver  before  I  take  my  seat. 

I  am  of  opinion,  Mr.  President,  that  this  slave- 
ry agitation,  all  the  world  over,  not  only  in  Amer- 
ica, but  everwhere,  is  in  its  last  throes.  I  think 
the  time  is  not  distant  when  you  will  not  hear  a 
whimper  of  this  slavery  agitation  in  America  or 
Europe.  I  know  how  difficult  it  is,  and  how  rash 
it  may  be  to  assume  the  prerogative  of  time  and 
determine  the  future,  but  to  my  mind  it  seems  to 
me  this  must  be  the  logical  result  of  the  practical 
workings  of  this  material  and  practical  age  in 
which  we  live.  The  great  fountainhead  of  the 
slavery  agitation  was  Exeter  Hall,  in  England. 
Under  its  influence,  as  was  ably  shown  by  my 
colleague,  (Mr.  Gantt)— under  its  influence,  to- 
gether with  that  of  Wilberforce  and  of  Parliament, 
England  abolished  slavery  in  her  West  India  col- 
onies. Would  she  have  done  it  then  if  these 
West  India  colonies  had  raised  cotton  ?  Do  you 
think  England  would  have  ever  abolished  slavery 
in  that  island  if  it  had  been  a  cotton  growing 
island  ?  I  think  not.  If  that  were  a  cotton  grow- 
ing island  this  day,  England  would  be  cultivating 
cotton  there  by  involuntary  servitude  in  somo 
form.  She  would  take  the  African  in  some  form 
and  put  him  under  bonds,  or  she  would  take  the 
coolie  and  apprentice  him,  or  in  some  form  or 
other  she  would  be  engaged  in  the  culture  of  that 
curious  plant  by  involuntary  servitude.  Why? 
Because  more  than  10,000,000  of  people  re- 
quire the  cultivation  of  that  plant.  Legare 
said,  years  ago,  that  the  man  who  writes 
the  history  of  the  cotton  plant  will   write  the 


213 


history  of  a  new  civilization.  At  the  period 
of  the  formation  of  our  Government,  when 
our  ancestors  had  to  put  an  estimate  upon  these 
barbarians  bi-ought  from  the  shores  of  Africa, 
cotton  was  a  small  concern.  It  was  not  a  living 
and  realized  idea  in  the  world,  but  the  invention  of 
machinery  started  it  out  into  the  channels  of  trade 
so  that  now  a  man  cannot  be  decent  without  cot- 
ton, nor  a  woman  either.  We  cannot  sleep  in 
comfortable  beds  without  it.  There  is  no  aboli- 
tionist in  the  world— Be  echer,  or  Phillips  him- 
self—that  lives  without  cotton.  He  wears  it  in 
his  hat;  his  family,  his  wife  and  children  are 
clothed  with  it.  The  food  he  eats  springs  from 
the  same  source — the  source  of  slave  labor,  as  well 
as  every  luxury.  And  although  this  consideration 
has  not  been  potent  enough  to  stop  fanaticism  in 
the  North ;  yet  fanaticism,  under  Providence,  is 
short  lived.  It  is  upon  this  philosophy  that  strong 
emotions  soon  exhaust  themselves.  All  fanaticisms 
of  the  world  have  been  shortlived:  for  it  is  the 
law  of  their  nature.  The  longest  fanaticism  in 
the  history  of  the  world  was  that  of  England. 
It  was  the  fanaticism  of  the  sword.  It  was  a 
fanaticism  in  a  period  of  the  world's  history 
when  chivalry  prevailed;  when  men  would  meet 
in  the  arena  and  shiver  a  lance  with  each  other, 
or  wield  the  battle  axe  in  the  actual  field  of  bat- 
tle. There  was  no  commerce,  and  there  was  no 
great  amount  of  civilization;  England  was  noth- 
ing move  than  a  great  camp — a  marshalled  and 
military  camp.  Its  few  merchants  that  were 
seen  about  London,  did  not  understand  the  value 
of  the  spindle  and  the  loom.  These  were  not 
then  in  motion.  Commerce  did  not  depend 
upon  manufactures.  There  was  no  great  in- 
terest of  that  age  opposed  to  fanaticism; 
and,  therefore,  it  could  run  riot  and  work  deeds 
of  prowess  in  Palestine,  and  attempt  to  rescue 
from  the  grasp  of  the  Moslem  the  tomb  of  the 
Saviour.  But,  if  England  had  been  in  that  day, 
what  she  is  now,  no  Peter  the  Hermit  could  have 
moved  her.  Fanaticism  may  run  riot,  when  it  is 
not  opposed  to  the  material  interest  of  the  age. 
What  is  Exeter  Hall  now  doing  in  England? 
There  was  a  time  when  she  was  a  power  in  that 
land,  as  Parliament  and  the  London  Times  now 
are.  You  know  England,  for  a  number  of  years, 
has  been  struggling  to  grow  cotton  elsewhere 
than  in  the  United  States.  You  know  the  partial 
failure  of  our  crop,  at  one  time,  made  it  necessa- 
ry that  she  should  look  for  a  supply  from 
other  sources.  She  sent  out  pioneers  in  every 
land.  The  vision  of  those  practical  states- 
men had  been  looking  all  over  the 
earth  to  find  cotton— in  India,  Africa, 
Australia  and  South  America,  and  France,  like- 
wise is  now  nursing  her  Algeria,  to  bring  about 
the  same  result.  But  is  there  anybody  here  that 
does  not  know  the  white  man  is  not  going  to  cul- 
tivate cotton.    He   is  not  the  man  to  keep  the 


looms  and  spindles  of  England  in  operation.  If 
it  is  to  be  done,  it  must  be  by  the  Coolie  or  the 
African.  In  that  remarkable  continent  in  which 
England  is  now  endeavoring  to  cultivate  the  cot- 
ton seed,  the  African  must  grow  the  cotton  for  the 
looms  and  spindles  of  England  if  it  is  grown 
there  at  all.  So,  as  we  look  everywhere  over  the 
surface  of  the  globe,  wherever  we  find  the  geolo- 
gical formation  that  will  admit  the  growth  of  cot- 
ton, we  find  that  it  will  be  an  impossibility  that 
it  shall  be  grown  by  anybody  but  an  inferior  race 
under  the  domination  of  a  superior  race.  Eng- 
land has  already  proposed  to  give  the  King 
of  Dahomy  so  much  money  for  the  growth  of  so 
much  cotton.  I  have  attempted  to  expose  the 
cant  of  these  crowned  dynasties,  by  show- 
ing that  while  they  are  willing  to  cru<h  out 
every  aspiration  of  liberty  in  the  breast  of  the 
white  man,  they  can  be  very  benevolent  toward 
Africa,  because  that  country  cannot  endanger 
monarchy.  I  say,  in  the  anti-slaveiy  agitation 
of  the  North,  they  cannot  find  any  charities  for 
the  red  man,  and  it  is  because  they  can  make  no 
political  capital  out  of  the  red  man.  But  they 
can  do  it  out  of  the  black  man.  I  wonder  that 
these  men  who  are  engaged  m  a  mission  in  be- 
half of  the  black  man,  cannot  extend  their  sym- 
pathy towards  the  Indian.  When  I  said  in  a  hu- 
morous way  yesterday  that  the  red  man  was  in 
such  a  condition  as  to  inspire  the  hope  of  ulti- 
mate extinction,  one  of  my  friends  could  not  ap- 
preciate the  sentiment,  because  he  felt  a  sympa- 
thy for  that  noble  race.  We  have  taken 
their  country.  Our  cities  and  our  houses 
rest  upon  the  graves  of  their  dead.  We 
have  denied  them  dominion  of  the  soil 
and  subjected  them,  and  I  suppose  Boston 
stands  upon  the  graves  of  Indians,  as  well  as 
New  York  and  other  proud  cities  which,  under 
the  free  play  of  our  institutions,  have  arisen 
through  the  country.  The  free  labor  in  the  North 
is  now  working  upon  the  grave  and  the  home  of 
the  red  man,  and  yet  there  is  not  a  man  or  wo- 
man there  in  this  age  of  woman's  rights,  that 
have  associations  of  charity  and  benevolence  for 
the  benefit  of  the  condition  of  the  red  man. 

As  I  have  already  shown  this  slavery  agitation 
has  entered  into  the  organization  of  parties  both 
North  and  South.  What  does  England  say  in 
view  of  the  probable  disrupture  of  our  Govern- 
ment ?  The  London  Times  comes  out  in  an  ar- 
ticle in  which  it  says : — '*  It  must  be  confessed 
that  Exeter  Hall  was  popular  in  this  Island;  it 
must  be  confessed  that  when  Mrs.  Stowe  sent  out 
her  work,  this  Island  furnished  a  million  of  ap- 
preciative and  hungry  readers;  and  it  must 
be  confessed  also,  that  all  this  is  abstract. 
The  Americans  must  look  at  things  in  the  con- 
crete. Looking  Southward  we  say  what  would  Liv- 
erpool   and  Manchester  be  without  slave  labor? 


214 


What  would  bo  the  condition  of  commerce  with- 
out slave  labor?  Every  man  who  has  arisen  in 
the  House  of  Lords  or  Commons  has  uttered  the 
same  idea,  and  if  you  go  across  the  channel,  and 
peep  in  upon  the  secrets  of  Imperialism,  you  will 
find  the  same  idea.  Every  man  that  knows  Na- 
poleon the  III,  knows  that  he  is  a  far  seeing  man, 
and  that  he  knows  how  much  stronger  diploma- 
cy is  than  the  sword.  Every  man  who  has  paid 
any  attention  to  his  movement,  knows  that  there 
is  no  abstraction  under  Heaven  to  which  he 
would  sacrifice  the  interests  of  France.  Looking 
to  those  two  most  important  nations — looking  to 
their  manufactures,  their  commerce,  and  looking 
to  the  elements  that  constitute  their  greatness,  I 
don't  see  how  it  is  possible  to  avoid  the  conclu- 
sion that  in  the  Old  World,  at  least  Exeter  Hall 
must  "dry  up."  How  is  it  at  home?  At  this 
day  Phillips  cannot  get  an  audience  in  Boston  to 
make  anti-slavery  harangues. 

Phillips  is  one  of  those  gifted  men  in  the  world 
who  have  the  charm  of  eloquence.  A  finer  orator 
does  not  live  on  the  earth  to-day,  perhaps,  than 
Phillips.  He  has  held  spell-bound,  multitudes  of 
fanatical  people,  year  after  year,  and  now,  in 
what  we  conceive  to  be  the  very  hot-bed  of  fanat- 
icism, he  cannot  speak.  He  is  dependent  upon  a 
Republican  mayor  to  save  him  from  the  action  of 
a  mob.  Look  closer;  come  to  Chicago  and  look  at 
their  platform.  See  how  small  a  part  of  that  plat- 
form is  confined  to  the  slavery  plank.  It  is  a 
parenthetical  article  in  a  large  programme  of 
policy.  I  know  they  made  the  most  of  it  in  the 
late  contest,  but  I  think  I  only  do  the  supporters 
of  the  Chicago  platform  justice  in  saying  that 
they  did  not  intend  to  use  slavery  agitation  longer 
than  in  that  single  campaign.  They  made  the 
most  of  it.  They  fought  it  with  infinite  skill  and 
energy;  but  it  is  manifest  from  the  structure 
of  their  platform  that  they  looked  forward  to  a 
period  of  time  in  which  this  slavery  agitation 
would  die,  and  that  they  would  be  compelled  to 
stake  themselves  upon  other  policies.  What  are 
those  other  policies  sketched  in  that  platform? 
Right  or  wrong  there  is  a  magnitude  in  them. 
Look  at  their  action  in  Congress,  before  the  Chi- 
cago platform  was  made.  Notwithstanding  many 
of  them  came  from  the  Atlantic  seaboard,  yet 
when  the  question  was  raised,  shall  Congress 
grant  aid  to  the  oceanic  steamers?  where  did 
these  Republicans  plant  themselves.  They  voted 
against  it,  and  instead  they  favored  a  Pacific 
road,  telegraphic  lines  and  the  homestead  bill, 
and  the  carrying  of  the  mails  across  our  continent 
to  the  smooth  sea.  Why  did  they  favor  the  home- 
stead bill?  Because,  as  Seward  said  in  his  Madison 
speech,  it  is  necessary  for  free  labor.  Free  labor 
in  America  is  fast  approximating  to  the  European 
standard  of  value,  says  the  philosopher  of  Au- 
burn in  his  Madison  speech. 


Free  labor,  that  has  been  so  much  praised  as 
the  monopolizing  interest  of  this  country,  cannot 
live  in  the  North.  It  must  have  its  outlet  in  the 
great  West.  We  must  lift  up  the  feudal  tenure, 
and  make  it  the  home  and  outlet  of  free  labor. 
In  other  words,  Seward  says  this,  that  no  party 
can  arise  in  this  land  and  maintain  itself,  either 
North  or  South,  without  it  attaches  itself  to  the 
great  seat  of  empire,  and  every  plank  in  the  Chi- 
cago platform  that  is  a  material  plank  at  all, 
looks  to  the  seat  of  power  in  the  West.  The 
slavery  agitation  was  only  incidental ;  they  made 
the  most  of  it,  but  they  have  provided  some- 
thing to  fall  back  upon.  The  men  who  met  at 
Chicago  were  tar-seeing  enough  to  know  that  the 
Atlantic  dynasties  must  perish,  and  that  the 
seat  of  empire  is  here  in  the  West — that 
the  West  will  have  a  potential  voice 
in  the  legislation  of  the  country  —  that 
"Westward  the  star  of  empire  takes  its  way," 
and  the  politicians  are  sharp  enough  to  see  its 
beams  of  light.  For  all  these  reasons,  my  heart 
is  not  sad,  like  that  of  my  friend  from  Clay,  (Mr. 
Moss)  or  hopeless,  like  that  of  my  friend  from 
Jackson  (Mr.  Comingo.)  I  look  forward  hope- 
fully and  cheerfully  through  the  thick  gloom  of 
the  present,  and  I  see  the  light  bursting.  It  is 
clear  to  me  that  we  shall  have  an  adjustment.  It 
is  as  clear  to  my  mind  as  it  is  to  my  physical 
vision  when  I  see  the  eastern  horizon  streaked 
with  the  dawning  light,  and  thereby  know  that 
the  gates  are  open  and  that  the  god  of  day  will 
soon  arise. 

I  should  not  feel  happy  unless  I  looked  upon 
my  country  as  a  whole.  I  want  the  North  and 
the  South.  I  want  the  whole  North  and  the 
whole  South.  I  turn  my  eyes  to  that  classic 
land  upon  our  Atlantic  border,  and  I  see  some 
monuments  of  patriotism  with  the  eyes  of  my 
soul.  First,  I  look  at  Moultrie — classic  ground, 
and  an  altar  dedicated  to  liberty.  I  see  Cow- 
pens  and  the  Guilford  Courthouse,  and  Camden, 
and  King's  Mountain.  I  see  these  as  clearly  as  I 
see  Yorktown,  and  thus  I  remember  some  of  the 
names — a  Pinckney,  (grandfather  of  the  present 
Governor  of  South  Carolina,)  a  Rutledge,  a  Hayne, 
a  Sumter — glorious,  gallant  Sumter — a  Jasper — 
Sargeant  Jasper— a  Marion,  and  a  thousand  other 
worthies  that  belong  to  me.  They  are  my  prop- 
erty, my  glory,  my  assets — a  part  of  my  assets 
and  derived  from  the  birthright  of  American  citi- 
zenship, and  I  never  could  give  them  up;  they  are 
indivisible.  Now  let  me  look  at  the  North.  First, 
in  the  great  panorama  that  comes  before  me,  is 
Concord  and  Lexington  and  Breed's  and  Bun- 
ker's Hil,  and  there  is  Harlem  Heights  and  Sto- 
ny Point  and  Saratoga!  And  are  not  the.->e 
mine  also  ?  Are  they  not  my  assets  also  ?  Do 
they  not  belong  to  me  and  you?  And  are  they 
divisible?  Then  there  are  the  names  of  such  a 
crowd  of  noble   souls  that  I  cannot  enumerate 


215 


them,  but  among  the  first  martyrs  I  sec  a  War- 
ren with  the  blood  upon  his  breast  on  Bunker's 
Hill.  Oh!  would  the  times  were  come  again 
when  men  from  the  South  would  rush  to  the  as- 
sistance of  the  North  in  time  of  need,  as  they 
did  from  my  native  State  from  a  little  valley  on 
the  Shenandoah,  when  the  first  blood  was  spilt  at 
Boston.  They  were  not  troubled  in  the  valley 
of  the  Shenandoah,  then,  with  hostile  feelings, 
but  they  said  these  men  in  Massachusetts  are  our 
brethren ;  they  are  fighing  for  liberty.  And  so 
these  one  hundred  and  fifty  men  met  together 
and  would  take  a  bee-line  for  Boston;  and  that 
they  would  also,  fifty  years  from  that  day,  on  the 
anniversary  of  their  march,  meet  at  their  place 
of  rendezvous,  and  upon  the  banks  of  the  Shen- 
andoah celebrate  their  march.  They  went,  and 
George  Washington  saw  them :  they  were  dressed 
in  the  primitive  style  of  the  people  of  that  day, 
with  red  hunting  shirts ;  but  Washington  knew 
Captain  Stevenson.  Springing  from  his  horse, 
he  seized  the  brave  man  by  both  hands. 
He  could  not  speak;  how  could  he, 
when  the  tears  of  patriotism  burst  from  his 
eyes  and  overwhelmed  and  drowned  his  voice  ? 
It  was  not  the  cause  of  Virginia,  but  it  was  the 
cause  of  Virginia's  brethren  in  the  North.  Errors 
like  the  present  had  not  then  sprung  up.  Doubt- 
less these  errors  spring  up  naturally  because  of 
the  free  play  of  our  institutions,  giving  inde- 
pendence of  mind  and  thought  to  all;  and  surely 
that  is  the  best  mode  of  all  by  which  we  can  root 
out  error — by  the  free  play  of  intellect  and  rea- 
son—and after  these  errors  have  subsided  we  will 
be  once  more  a  quiet  people — a  greater  people 
and  a  stronger  people  than  we  ever  were.  Having 
learned  to  suffer  the  ills  of  adversity,  and  coming 
out  of  the  trial  more  vigorous  and  full  armed,  we 
will  have  all  the  powers  that  will  make  us  great 
by  all  the  affection  that  makes  us  brothers. 

Mr.  Bast.  Now,  sir,  at  first  sight  it  occurred 
to  me  there  could  be  no  argument  against  a  reso- 
lution of  that  description.  (The  first  of  the  se- 
ries reported  by  the  Committee  on  Federal  Rela- 
tions. )  We  all  admit  that  we  are  now  in  trouble. 
No  one  doubts  it.  Every  argument  that  has  been 
produced  in  this  Convention  has  been  made  in 
reference  to  this  matter,  that  we  are  in  trouble. 
What  are  these  troubles  ?  Is  our  commerce  and 
progress  the  same  as  heretofore?  Is  the 
peace  and  quiet  of  the  country  as  it  has 
been  heretofore?  Are  the  minds  of  this 
immense  number  of  people  in  as  quiet  and 
tranquil  a  condition  as  before  the  present  agita- 
tion was  commenced  ?  I  think  there  are  many 
causes  to  operate  upon  the  minds  of  the  people, 
which  causes  arc  weighed  differently  by  dif- 
ferent individuals,  as  illustrated  by  the  members 
of  this  Convention,  and  the  people  through 
the  country.  If  we  have  any  cause,  what  is  that 
cause?    Have  the  Southern  people  of  this  con- 


federacy, who  have  withdrawn  from  the  present 
Union,  any  cause  for  doing  so.  Are  they  not  con- 
tending for  their  own  just  rights — their  families 
and  their  firesides  ?  They  are  well  aware  from  the 
aggressions  of  the  North  as  they  understand  them, 
that  in  the  event  of  the  entire  success  of  its  own 
opinions,  it  is  the  intention  of  the  Republican 
party  to  extinguish  the  institution  of  slavery,  and 
by  extinguishing  it  do  they  not  at  once  extin- 
guish all  their  hopes  for  the  present  and  the  fu- 
ture. Their  very  sustenance  depends  upon  the 
maintenance  of  the  slave  institutions  of  the 
South.  Upon  the  slave  property  of  the  South 
depends  the  cultivation  of  the  soil  which, 
on  account  of  the  warm  climate  of  the  South, 
cannot  be  cultivated  by  any  other  labor  than 
slave  labor.  Who  can  make  cotton?  Can 
white  labor  be  performed  in  that  country 
so  as  to  make  it  profitable?  Great  Britain  has 
tried  various  plans  to  run  in  opposition  to  the 
slavery  of  the  South,  but  without  success.  Cot- 
ton can  be  supplied  more  cheaply  from  the 
Southern  States,  than  from  anywhere  else.  I  say, 
then,  this  is  a  question  of  life  and  death  to  South- 
ern interests.  We  are  exempt  from  that  cause  to 
a  great  extent.  Our  institutions  are  like  theirs, 
and  though  we  might  live  without  slavery,  yet 
our  interests  are  identical  with  them,  and  I  think 
we  can,  with  strict  justice  to  ourselves,  say  to  the 
Southern  people  that  they  have  not  at  least  done 
very  wrong  in  taking  the  course  they  have.  I 
may  be  considered  and  pointed  out  as  a  seces- 
sionist, but  I  say  such  is  not  the  case.  I  am  no 
secessionist.  I  do  not  represent  a  secession  con- 
stituency. I  represent  as  honorable  a  constitu- 
ency, as  high-minded  and  patriotic  a  constitu- 
ency as  any  representative  on  this  floor.  They  are 
not  secessionists.  They  are  men  who  are  in  favor 
of  their  just  and  independent  rights,  and  they 
would  say  to  any  person  opposed  to  their  inter- 
est, we  demand  our  rights;  we  do  not  intend 
to  come  with  suppliant  knee  and  petition  for  our 
rights,  but  we  come  boldly  and  say  we  demand 
our  rights,  and  nothing  more;  we  want  nothing- 
more  than  strict,  honest,  just  and  constitutional 
rights,  but  being  a  magnanimous  people,  and 
taking  into  consideration  the  present  excited  con- 
dition of  the  public  mind,  we  are  willing  to  say  we 
will  compromise  and  take  what  our  sister  border 
States  are  willing  to  accept.  Under  these  cir- 
cumstances, we  are  ready  to  say,  if  you  Avill  not 
continue  your  aggressive  acts,  we  will  remain 
with  3Tou;  but  if  you  continue  to  persevere  in 
those  acts,  we  must  then  fall  back  on  our  reserved 
rights.  Mr.  President,  I  don't  think  it  is  neces- 
sary, and  neither  would  I  undertake  to  discuss 
this  question  in  relation  to  the  formation  of  our 
government.  I  conceive  it  to  be  irrelevant  to  the 
question  at  issue.  We  are  called  here  for  a  certain 
purpose;  our  country  is  in  trouble,  and  we  are 
called  here  to  bring  about  some  means  of  recon- 


216 


ciliation  if  we  can  do  so.  What  has  the  founda- 
tion of  the  government  to  do  with  the  reconcilia- 
tion of  these  difficulties.  The  facts  are  before  us; 
our  country  is  dismembered ;  commerce  is  tram- 
melled ;  we  are  fettered  in  many  ways,  and  is  it 
not  indisputably  necessary  that  we  should  set  all 
irrelevant  questions  aside,  and  say  at  once  to  the 
country  at  large,  what  we  think  should  be  done  ? 
Now  the  Crittenden  plan  of  adjustment  has  been 
proposed.  I  believe  it  is  acceptable  to  a  majority 
of  this  Convention,  and  to  a  majority  of  the  peo- 
ple of  Missouri.  The  Crittenden  amendment  ex- 
tends to  Territories  hereafter  to  be  acquired.  I  do 
not  think  there  can  be  any  serious  objection  to 
the  adoption  of  a  proposition  of  that  kind.  But 
we  know  that  in  accepting  that,  we  are  not  get- 
ting the  full  extent  of  our  rights ;  but,  as  a  mag- 
nanimous people,  and  for  the  sake  of  compro- 
mise, we  say  we  are  willing  to  accept  a  little  less 
than  our  rights,  and  compromise  these  difficulties. 

If  the  difficulties  under  which  we  are  laboring — 
if  I  can  consider  in  relation  to  the  difficulties  and 
troubles  that  caused  our  Southern  brethren  to  se- 
cede, if  they  are  operating  upon  us — if  these  trou- 
bles have  caused  seven  States  to  secede,  and  most 
of  the  other  slave  States  to  call  Conventions, 
and  take  into  consideration  these  difficulties,  is  it 
not  necessary  that  we  should  pause  and  reflect 
before  we  say  there  is  no  cause  why  Missouri 
should  separate  or  change  her  form  of  govern- 
ment. I  think  there  is  ample  cause.  There  is  at 
present — and  I  am  speaking  to  an  intelligent  au- 
dience— there  is,  I  say,  ample  cause  why  Missouri 
should  secede.  But  I  do  not  wish  it  to  be  under- 
stood that  I  advocate  the  doctrine  of  secession. 
I  say,  however,  we  have  cause  to  secede, 
but  good  sound  policy  requires  us  as  a  mag- 
nanimous people  to  act  in  co-operation  with 
our  sister  States,and  bring  about  a  reconciliation, 
and  bring  back  the  Government  to  its  pristine  pu- 
rity, if  such  a  thing  can  be  brought  about.  It 
would  be  the  happiest  act  of  my  life  if  I  could 
in  any  degree  bring  about  that  desirable  end. — 
When  I  came  to  this  Convention  there  were  oth- 
er subjects  on  which  I  expected  to  speak,  but  as, 
we  have  the  privilege  of  speaking  to  each  of  these 
resolutions,  I  will  not  occupy  any  more  time.  I 
wish,  however,  to  say  in  conclusion,  to  the  latter 
part  of  this  resolution,  that  it  is  the  duty  and  for 
the  interest  and  welfare  of  Missouri,  under  all  cir- 
cumstances, to  exert  herself  so  as  to  secure  the 
rights  and  equalities  of  the  States. 

Mr.  Allen.  In  the  conclusion  of  my  speech 
the  other  evening,  I  remarked  that  in  the  event 
that  an  adjustment  could  be  accomplished  be- 
tween the  North  and  the  South ;  that  if  we  could 
induce  the  Southern  States  to  come  back  into  the 
Union  again,  that  I  would  be  ready  to  act  as  the 
father  in  the  case  of  the  Prodigal  Son;  that  I 
would  go  out  and  meet  them,  and  fall  upon  their 
necks  and  kiss  them.    The  question  is,  whether 


I  would  be  for  kissing  the  ladies  or  the  gentle- 
men. In  that  case  it  would  be  the  ladies  I  would 
be  in  favor  of  kissing. 

Mr.  Redd.  Before  the  resolution  is  passed  up- 
on I  desire  to  offer  an  amendment.  Amend  the 
first  resolution  by  striking  out  the  word  "  cause  " 
and  inserting  in  place  thereof  the  word  "  mo- 
tive." I  will  not  say  any  thing  further,  Mr.  Presi- 
dent, except  this:  the  Convention  knows  my 
views  in  relation  to  the  causes  that  exist  in  the 
shape  of  violations  to  the  Constitution.  It  knows 
also  that  my  views  are,  that  when  these  causes 
are  sufficient  to  justify  it  a  State  has  the  right  of 
falling  back,  as  the  Convention  of  Virginia  has 
expressed  it,  upon  its  reserved  rights.  The  word 
"  cause  "  may  be  used  as  synonymous  with  the 
word  "motive,"  and  I  believe  it  is  so  used. — 
If  so  used  in  that  resolution  I  have  no  ob" 
jection  to  the  resolution;  but  it  is  not  always 
so  used.  If,  however,  we  design  to  use  it  in 
that  sense,  and  under  the  existing  state  of 
things,  and  in  view  of  an  amicable  adjustment, 
declare  that  there  is  no  motive  adequate  to  im- 
pel to  withdraw,  then  I  have  no  objection  to  the 
resolution.  It  meets  my  views.  But  I  offer  this 
amendment  simply  that  the  idea  may  stand  out 
plainly  upon  this  resolution. 

The  vote  was  then  taken  and  the  amendment 
was  lost.  The  original  resolution  was  then 
adopted— ayes  89,  noes  1,  Mr.  Bast  voting  in  the 
negative. 

The  Chair.  I  will  remark  to  the  Chairman  of 
the  Committee  on  Federal  Relations,  that  he  of- 
fered a  resolution  which  was  laid  upon  the  table 
and  ordered  to  be  printed.  Does  he  design  to 
have  it  acted  upon  now  ? 

Mr.  Gamble.  The  resolution  was  offered  as 
an  additional  resolution,  and  not  as  a  substitute. 

Mr.  Hough  offered  an  amendment  to  the  5th 
resolution : 

Resolved,  That,  in  order  to  secure  our  rights 
under  the  Constitution,  it  is  of  the  greatest  im- 
portance that  the  public  peace  be  preserved,  and, 
in  the  opinion  of  this  Convention,  it  cannot  be 
done  if  the  General  Government  continues  the 
occupation  of  forts  in  the  seceding  States;  we, 
therefore,  request  the'  President  of  the  United 
States  to  withdraw  the  troops  from  those  forts. 

Mr.  Hough.  I  may  at  another  time  be  able  to 
say  something  in  regard  to  this  proposition,  but 
at  present  I  am  too  much  indisposed  to  do  so. 

Mr.  Gamble.  I  understood  yesterday  that 
the  motion  was  to  take  up  the  resolutions  in  the 
order  in  which  they  were  reported. 

The  Chair.  I  think  not.  I  asked  the  gentle- 
man from  St.  Louis  if  he  desired  to  make  the 
motion  in  that  form  and  he  said  no,  distinctly. 

Mr.  Gamble.  If  it  is  in  order  I  make  the 
motion  now,  and  also  that  this  proposed  amend- 
ment be  laid  on  the  table  and  printed.  The  mo- 
tion was  sustained. 


217 


The  second  resolution  was  then  taken  up  and 
passed  and  adopted — ayes  90,  nays  none. 

The  third  resolution  was  then  taken  up : 

Resolved,  That  the  people  of  this  State  deem 
the  amendments  to  the  Constitution  of  the  United 
States,  proposed  by  the  Hon.  John  J.  Crittenden, 
of  Kentucky,  with  the  extension  of  the  same  to 
the  territory  hereafter  to  he  acquired  by  treaty  or 
otherwise,  a  basis  of  adjustment  which  will  suc- 
cessfully remove  the  causes  of  difference  forever 
from  the  arena  of  national  politics. 

Mr.  Bast  then  offered  the  following  as  an 
amendment : 

Amend  by  adding,  "And  in  the  event  of  a  re- 
fusal by  the  Northern  States  to  agree  or  consent 
to  such  an  adjustment  of  the  slavery  question, 
and  our  sisters  Virginia,  Maryland,  North  Caro- 
lina, Tennessee,  Arkansas  and  Kentucky  shall  de- 
termine to  change  the  relations  they  now  hold  to 
the  General  Government,  the  State  of  Missouri 
will  not  hesitate  to  take  a  firm  and  decided  stand 
in  favor  of  her  sister  slave  States." 

The  ayes  and  noes  were  demanded. 

EXPLANATION  OF  VOTES. 

Mr.  Doniphan.  Before  I  vote  I  wish  to  ex- 
plain. I  cannot  vote  on  so  important  a  resolu- 
tion as  that  without  giving  my  reasons.  I  think, 
sir,  it  is  putting  forth  an  ultimatum,  and  that  I 
am  opposed  to.  The  resolution  to  which  this 
amendment  is  offered,  I  had  the  honor  of  offering 
myself.  Missouri  has  no  right  to  offer  an  ulti- 
matum, either  to  the  Border  slave  States,  the 
Southern  States  or  the  Northern  States.  I  am  a 
Union  man.  I  go  for  the  whole  Union — the  en- 
tire Union.  I  go  for  it  North,  South,  East  and 
West.  I  do  not  intend  to  bring  about  a  calamity 
that  will  destroy  the  Border  slave  States  and  the 
whole  Union.  I  do  not  intend  to  say  how  long  I 
am  going  to  uphold  this  Union  which  our  fathers 
builded.  They  were  seven  years  in  building  it, 
and  two  mighty  miracles  were  wrought  in  its 
formation.  First,  the  revolution,  which  lasted 
seven  years— seven  years  of  blood  and  carnage 
and  suffering,  and  finally  crowned  with  victory. 
Second,  the  formation  of  this  Constitution — which 
took  seven  years  more — by  men  of  the  purest 
wisdom  and  of  unquestioned  patriotism;  and 
shall  we  talk  of  settling  this  question  in  a  day, 
when  we  reap  the  fruition  of  their  labors 
in  ten  thousand  greater  fold  than  was  ever 
anticipated  by  them.  Sir,  I  am  willing  to  serve 
here  seven  years,  and  take  every  means  for  the 
preservation  of  this  Union.  I  am  willing  to  serve 
as  long  as  Jacob  served,  before  this  Union  shall 
be  dissolved.  I  am  not  going  to  fay  when  I  shall 
stop;  I  am  not  going  to  say  when  Missouri  shall 
stop.  Never!  Never,  while  hope  is  left.  I  live  by 
hope,  and  as  a  Union  man  I  shall  only  die  when 
hope  dies.  [Applause.] 


The  Chair.  Mr.  Sergeant-at-arms,  if  there  is 
any  more  cheering  in  the  lobby,  you  will  please 
remove  those  guilty  of  it. 

Mr.  Donnell.  In  explanation  of  my  vote  on 
this  subject,  I  feel  it  is  our  duty  to  co-operate  with 
the  border  slave  States,  and,  in  doing  so,  I  feel 
that  this  is  not  the  time  for  Missouri  to  offer  an 
ultimatum.  I  believe  the  time  will  come  when 
we  must  co-operate  with  them,  but  I  believe  that 
time  has  not  yet  come  to  express  that  determina- 
tion. When  that  time  comes,  then  I  believe  this 
question  will  properly  come  up  and  not  before.  I 
therefore  vote  against  the  amendment. 

Mr.  Dunn.  "  Sufficient  for  the  day  is  the  evil 
thereof."  When  this  question  comes  upon  us  I 
shall  be  prepared  to  meet  it.  To  anticipate  a 
question — to  look  forward  in  the  course  of  events 
and  say  that  if  such  and  such  things  happen,  we 
will  do  thus  and  so,  is,  in  my  opinion,  unwise  and 
improper.  Besides,  I  understand  the  amend- 
ment to  take  the  position  that  unless  the  Critten- 
den amendments  to  the  Constitution  shall  be 
adopted,  then  we  will  go  for  nothing  else.  I  am 
opposed  to  Missouri  placing  herself  in  such  a 
position.  I  indorse  those  amendments  to  the 
Constitution  most  heartily  and  cordially, 
but  yet  it  may  turn  out  that  we  may  not  be  able 
to  get  the  Crittenden  amendments  to  the  Consti- 
tution, and  we  may  get  something  that  will  suit 
us  even  better  than  the  Crittenden  amendments. 
I  know  not  how  this  may  be,  but  I  deem  it  unwise 
that  this  Convention  shall  place  itself  in  the  pre- 
dicament of  saying  that  nothing,  either  better  or 
worse  than  the  Crittenden  amendments,  will  sat- 
isfy us.  I  am  opposed  to  taking  that  position. 
It  would  bejust  as  unwise  to  say  to  the  physician 
attending  on  some  dear  friend,  if  the  dose  of 
medicine  first  prepared  should  fail  to  cure  the 
patient,  it  is  no  use  to  try  anything  else.— 
What  would  the  wise  physician  do  in  that  case  ? 
If  the  dose  he  administers  fails  to  cure,  he  would 


try  another  and  another,  as  long  as  there  is  hope 
of  saving  the  life  of  the  patient.  So  we  should  act. 
We  should  act  in  reference  to  our  political  troubles 
as  the  wise  physician  would  act  in  reference  to 
his  patient,  and  as  he  would  resort  to  any  and  ev- 
ery means  that  could  promise  a  restoration  of  his 
patient's  health,  so  we  should  resort  to  every 
means  to  secure  an  honorable  adjustment  of  our 
difficulties  and  the  restoration  of  our  Union. 
We  should  not  say  in  advance,  if  this  fails,  or 
anything  else  fails,  we  will  go  for  a  dissolution 
of  the  Union.  We  should  leave  ourselves  in  a 
condition  to  resort  to  any  and  every  means  of 
adjustment,  in  order  that  our  constitutional 
rights  may  be  secured  in  the  Union.  Now,  I 
shall  vote  against  the  amendment.  I  do  not  wish 
to  be  understood,  however,  to  say  that,  if,  in  spite 
of  all  our  efforts  to  procure  an  amicable  adjust- 
ment—if, in  spite  of  all  our  efforts  to  preserve 
the  Union— if,  in  spite  of  all  we  may  do  now  or 


218 


hereafter,  redress  should  be  refused,  and  a  dis- 
solution of  the  Union  should  come  upon  us, 
and  the  slave  and  free  States  should  separate  from 
each  other — I  do  not  wish  to  be  understood  in 
voting  against  the  amendment,  that  I  would  not 
then  be  in  favor  of  Missouri  taking  her  position 
with  the  South.  That  would  be  her  position  after 
all  our  efforts  have  failed ;  after  all  hope  of  sav- 
ing the  Union  is  lost,  and  we  are  left  to  choose 
between  the  Northern  and  Southern  Republics, 
then  Missouri  will  take  her  position  with  her  sis- 
ter States  of  the  South.  I  do  not  wish  to  be  mis- 
understood in  voting  against  this  amendment  in 
regard  to  that  matter.  But  we  ought  not  to  take 
the  dark  side  of  the  picture;  we  ought  not  to  be 
looking  to  a  dissolution  of  the  Union,  but  we 
ought  to  exert  all  our  efforts  to  restore  the  Union 
and  re-establish  it.  And  here  is  the  distinction  be- 
tween a  true  Union  man  and  a  man  Avho  is  not.  A 
true  friend  of  the  Union  is  looking  forward  anx- 
iously towards  every  method  of  adjustment  by 
which  our  rights  can  be  secured  and  the  Union 
preserved,  but  a  man  who  is  opposed  to  the  Union 
is  looking  at  the  dark  side  of  the  picture,  and 
reaching  after  ever3rthing  that  is  to  work  out  our 
destruction,  and  saying  that  if  such  a  thing  is  not 
done  the  Union  is  gone.  As  a  further  explana- 
tion I  have  but  a  single  remark  to  make,  and  that 
is  this :  as  the  gentlemen  who  have  addressed  us 
so  ably  and  eloquently,  have  paid  their  respects 
to  the  glorious  flag  of  our. country,  I  wish  to  say  I 
indorse  all  they  have  said  in  reference  to  it,  but 
permit  me  to  pay  my  respects  to  the  proud  bird 
of  liberty,  now  perched  above  the  President's 
stand.  Recognizing  that  eagle  (pointing  to  it)  as 
the  type  of  liberty  and  union,  I  cannot  better  ex- 
press my  feelings  upon  the  subject  than  by  saying : 
"Proud  bird !  though  marred  by  ruthless  hands, 

Thy  name  each  freeman  gladly  hails. 
For  well  he  knows  in  other  lands, 

Before  thy  glance  the  despot  quails : 
Still  make  thy  cherished  home,  among 

The  shrines  reared  by  our  patriot  sires, 
'Till  the  last  sceptre  shall  be  wrung 

From  tyrant  hands— till  time  expires." 
I  vote  no. 

Mr.  Frazier.  I  have  often  been  asked  what 
I  would  do  if  these  national  difficulties  cannot  be 
settled;  when  we  have  exhausted  all  means  I 
have  often  been  asked  as  to  what  course  Missouri 
should  take ;  am  I  willing  to  go  with  the  North  or 
with  the  South?  I  have  replied  that  my  feelings 
are  with  the  South,  but  at  the  same  time  I  say 
this,  if  you  go  out  it  will  not  be  by  secession  but 
by  revolution. 

Mr.  President,  there  is  an  amendment  to  the 
report  by  the  Committee  on  Federal  Relations, 
which,  it  seems  to  me,  is  calculated  to  meet  the 
very  wants  anticipated  in  this  amendment.  I 
think,  therefore,  that  there  is  no  necessity  for  this 
amendment.  Permit  me  to  say,  Mr.  President, 
that  I  love  this  Union — I  love  it  better  than  I  have 


language  to  express,  and  I  have  determined  that 
if  I  can  do  nothing  to  advance  the  peace  and  per- 
petuity of  the  Union,  I  will  do  nothing  toward 
destroying  it.  Sir,  I  love  every  man,  whether  he 
comes  from  the  East,  the  West,  the  North  or  thG 
South,  but  God  knows  I  lack  language  to  ex- 
press the  deep  detestation  I  have  for  the  man 
who  hates  my  country  and  would  bring  about 
my  country's  ruin. 

Mr.  Gravelly.  In  explanation  of  my  vote  I 
desire  to  say  that  I  am  in  favor  of  the  plan  of  ad- 
justment proposed  by  Mr.  Crittenden.  I  trust 
that  such  a  basis  of  adjustment  may  be  adopted 
by  the  National  Convention  proposed  to  be  called 
in  the  resolutions.  I  believe  that  Missouri,  occu- 
pying a  central  position  as  she  does,  should  act 
as  a  mediator,  and  endeavor  to  bring  about  a  re- 
conciliation between  the  North  and  the  South  upon 
the  subject  of  slavery.  But  I  believe  it  is  inex- 
pedient to  determine  now  that  in  the  future  we 
will  take  sides  with  the  one  party  or  the  other.  If 
we  are  acting  as  peace  makers — if  it  is  our  object, 
sir,  to  bring  about  a  reconciliation  between  those 
who  are  now  divided,  it  does  seem  to  me  that  it 
would  be  inexpedient,  in  advance,  to  decide  that 
we  will  take  sides  with  the  one  party  or  the 
other. 

It  is  true,  Mr.  President,  that  gentlemen  have 
argued  here  that  the  vote  against  a  resolution  of 
this  kind  is  equivalent  to  the  declaration  that  we 
will  take  the  other  side.  It  may  be  considered  by 
some  that  in  voting  against  this  amendment  we 
declare  that  in  case  there  can  be  no  settlement > 
Missouri  should  take  her  position  by  the  side  of 
the  Northern  States.  But  I  do  not  believe  that 
such  a  construction  can  rightfully  be  placed  upon 
such  a  vote,  and  I  shall  not,  therefore,  hesitate 
to  vote  against  this  amendment.  If  a  resolution 
had  been  submitted  to  this  Convention  declaring 
that  if  no  settlement  could  be  effected,  Missouri 
would  take  her  stand  with  the  North,  I  would 
have  noted  ko  upon  such  resolution,  and  the 
gentlemen  who  consider  that  to  vote  down  this 
amendment,  is  equivalent  to  saying,  "we  will  go 
with  the  North,"  could  have  accomplished  their 
object  much  better  by  offering  a  resolution  that, 
in  case  there  can  be  no  settlement,  Missouri's  des- 
tiny will  be  linked  with  the  North,  and  then,  if 
that  resolution  was  voted  down  unanimously,  ac- 
cording to  those  logical  gentlemen,  it  would  be 
equivalent  to  saying  that  we  will  stand  by  the  side 
of  our  sister  States  of  the  South.  I  shall  vote  no 
on  the  amendment. 

Mr.  Hatcher.  I  do  not  understand  this 
amendment  to  be  in  conflict  with  the  spirit  of  the 
resolutions  recommended  by  the  Committee.  I 
do  not  understand  it  to  be  an  ultimatum,  except 
in  the  event  that  all  other  slaveholding  States  see 
proper  to  dissolve  their  connection  with  the 
Union  and  go  South.  I  represent  a  Union  dis- 
trict on  this  floor— there  is  not  a  more  Union  lov- 


219 


ing  people  in  the  State  than  the  people  of  my  dis- 
trict. At  the  same  time  I  represent  a  slavehold- 
ing  district,  whose  feelings  and  whose  interests 
are  with  their  Southern  brethren  if  the  calamity 
of  a  dissolution  of  the  Union  must  come.  I  know 
that  I  speak  the  sentiments  of  my  district  when  I 
say  that,  if  all  the  other  slavholding  States  are 
forced  to  go  South,  they  want  to  go  South  also.  I 
therefore  vote  aye- 

Mr  Howell.  The  condition  of  my  lungs  has 
been  such  up  to  the  present  time  as  to  preclude 
me  from  addressing  this  Convention,  and  my  con- 
stituents through  it  upon  the  questions  that 
have  been  presented  for  our  action.  That  is 
yet  my  situation,  anil  I  shall  therefore  be  brief 
in  defining  my  position  on  this  amendment. 

Sir,  I  stand  here  in  this  Convention  emphati- 
cally a  Constitutional  Union  man.  I  was  recog- 
nized in  the  canvass  as  a  Union  man.  I  represent 
a  Union  constituency.  They  and  I,  are  in 
favor  of  exhausting  all  efforts  to  obtain  an  ad- 
justment of  the  difficulties  that  now  environ 
us  and  endanger  the  perpetuity  of  the 
Union  of  these  States.  We  are  not  only  in  favor 
of  exhausting  all  efforts  to  bring  about  that  de- 
sirable purpose,  but  we  are  willing  to  wait  to 
give  ample  time  and  labor  for  the  reconstruction  of 
the  Government  and  the  perpetuity  of  the  Union. 
But,  sir,  after  all  reasonable  time  has  been 
afforded,  and  when  the  Northern  States  refuse  to 
afford  satisfactory  guarantees  to  the  slaveholding 
States  for  their  equality  in  the  Union,  and  the 
maintenance  of  their  rights  in  the  Union,  and 
the  other  slave  States  have  seceded  or  rev- 
olutionized from  this  Union,  it  is  then  dis- 
solved, and  the  only  question  remaining  is: 
"Where  will  Missouri  take  her  position?  Where 
will  she  throw  her  destiny?  Will  she  be  a  tail  to 
the  Northern  kite,  or  will  she  shake  hands  with 
her  Southern  sisters,  and  say,  "  Come  weal  or 
come  woe,  come  sunshine  or  clouds,  come  life  or 
death,  we  will  go  with  the  Southern  States,  we 
will  go  with  our  own  blood  and  our  own  kin- 
dred!" 

Now,  sir,  if  the  proposition  before  us  was  in 
my  estimation  an  ultimatum  held  out  to  the  North 
or  the  slave  States  upon  the  Crittenden 
compromise,  I  should  unhesitatingly  vote  against 
it.  But  I  do  not  understand  it  as  such.  I  un- 
derstand it  to  announce  the  position,  in  substance, 
at  least,  that  after  all  efforts  have  been  exhausted 
without  effect  for  reconciliation,  and  the  other 
slave  States  have  withdrawn  from  the  Union, 
Missouri  will  be  found  in  co-operation  with  her 
Southern  sisters.  That  is  what  I  believe  she 
will  do,  and  I  believe  it  is  only  just  to  the  re- 
maining slave  States  to  say  so;  and  it  is  only 
just,  also,  to  announce  the  fact  to  Northern 
States,  so  that  they  may  understand  our  position 
and  the  importance  of  rendering  justice  to  the 


slave  States.  Giving  that  construction  to  the 
amendment,  I  shall  vote  aye. 

Mr.  Ray.  In  explanation  of  my  vote,  Mr. 
President,  I  have  this  to  say :  I  am  opposed  to 
that  amendment,  because  I  understand  that  it 
proposes  to  stake  Missouri  upon  the  Crittenden 
proposition  as  an  ultimatum.  I  understand  that 
it  proposes  to  say  to  the  North  and  to  the  border 
slave  States,  that  we  will  take  that  as  a  compro- 
mise, and  nothing  else;  that  we  will  not  be  at 
liberty  to  agree  upon  terms  other  than  those  con- 
tained in  the  Crittenden  proposition.  I  am  op- 
posed to  this  Convention  of  the  State  of  Missouri 
proposing  any  ultimatum  upon  this  subject.  My 
policy  is  this :  I  believe  that  Missouri,  together 
with  the  other  border  slave  States,  ought  to  ex- 
haust all  honorable  efforts  to  secure  an  adjust- 
ment of  present  difficulties.  I  believe  that  it  is 
yet  in  the  power  of  the  border  slave  States,  in- 
cluding North  Carolina,  Tennessee  and  glorious 
Arkansas,  to  save  this  Union  and  secure  an  ad- 
iustment  that  will  be  honorable  alike  to  the  bor- 
der slave  States,  and  that  ought  to  satisfy  the 
States  that  have  gone  out.  I  believe  that  by  pur- 
suing a  calm  and  dia^rified  course  of  this  kind, 
unaccompanied  by  any  threats  or  menace,  we  can 
yet  save  this  Union  and  secure  an  honorable  ad- 
justment. I  am  for  taking  the  Crittenden  com- 
promise, if  we  can  get  it,  or  any  other  compro- 
mise that  Missouri,  in  consultation  with  the  other 
border  slave  States,  may  deem  satisfactory  to 
their  honor  and  interest;  but  I  am  opposed  to 
staking  the  weal  of  Missouri  on  the  Crittenden 
compromise  as  an  ultimatum. 

There  is  another  feature  in  the  amendment 
about  which  I  have  this  to  say :  It  looks  to  a 
contingency  that  in  my  mind  never  can  and  never 
will  happen.  Virginia,  Kentucky,  and  the  other 
border  slave  States  that  now  remain  in  the  Union, 
that  have  withstood  up  to  this  hour  all  the  efforts 
to  precipitate  them  into  revolution,  and  that  will, 
in  my  estimation,  continue  to  stand  gloriously 
by  this  Union,  in  spite  of  all  the  efforts  of  de- 
signing men  to  the  contrary— I  believe  that 
these  border  States,  having  stood  up  to  this  hour, 
will  never  go  out  hereafter.  It  is  looking  to  a 
contingency  that  never  can  happen.  I  believe 
we  can  yet  secure  an  adjustment  by  pursuing, 
as  I  have  said,  a  calm,  moderate  course,  unac- 
companied by  any  threat  or  menace.  For  this 
reason  I  am  opposed  to  the  amendment.  But, 
Mr.  President,  should  all  honorable  efforts  for 
an  adiustment  ultimately  fail;  if  that  thing 
should  happen  which  ccannot  happen,  name- 
ly, that  all  the  border  States  now  in 
the  Union  should  go  out  of  this  Union; 
my  opinion  then  is,  whether  wisely  or  unwisely, 
that  all  the  powers  upon  earth  could  not  hold 
Missouri  in  the  Union.  In  that  event,  Missouii 
would  unite  her  destiny  with  the  slave  States.  I 
vote  no. 


220 


Mr.  Foster.  Mr.  President,  before  casting 
my  vote  upon  the  amendment  now  pending  to 
the  third  resolution,  I  desire  to  say  that  I  was 
elected  as  a  Union  man,  pledged  to  do  all  I  could 
to  preserve  the  Union,  and  maintain  our  consti- 
tutional rights,  and  was  fully  pledged  against  se- 
cession, and  as  yet  I  have  been  unable  to  discover 
any  reason  which  would  induce  me  to  aban- 
don that  position.  This  amendment,  if  adopted, 
would,  to  say  the  least  of  it,  give  aid  and 
comfort  to  the  secessionists,  which  I  desire  shall 
not  be  done.  I  desire  that  this  Convention  will 
not  do  anything  that  even  squints  at  secession,  or 
gives  aid  or  comfort  to  the  enemies  of  this  Gov- 
ernment. This  amendment  pledges  Missouri 
that,  in  the  event  of  the  happening  of  certain 
contingencies,  by  some  of  our  Southern  sister 
States,  then  Missouri  will  follow  their  example. 

Now,  Mr.  President,  I  have  confidence  in  the 
wisdom  and  patriotism  of  the  people  of  Virginia 
and  Kentucky,  yet  I  have  as  much  confidence  in 
the  wisdom  and  patriotism  of  the  people  of  Mis- 
souri as  any  people  upon  God's  footstool,  and 
that  they  are  quite  well  calculated  to  determine 
for  themselves  f  11  questions  that  affect  their  in- 
terest. I  am  unwilling  to  hinge  the  destinies  of 
Missouri  upon  the  action  of  any  State.  I  am 
perfectly  willing  to  act  in  common  with  the  bor- 
der slave  States  to  devise  some  plan  to  adjust  the 
difficulties  that  now  distract  the  country. 

Mr.  President,  I  understand  this  amendment 
pledges  Missouri,  upon  certain  contingencies 
to  take  place  by  other  States,  that  she  will  follow 
in  their  example,  and  in  regard  to  this  amend- 
ment I  had  just  as  soon  vote  for  an  ordinance  of 
secession,  to  take  effect  when  the  States  of  Vir- 
ginia and  Kentucky  shall  secede,  as  to  vote  for 
this  amendment.  I  desire  that  our  hands 
shall  not  be  tied  in  that  manner,  but  left 
free  to  act  when  the  emergency  shall  arise, 
and  not  act  prospectively  on  great  questions  that 
affect  our  interest.  I  was  called  upon  and  voted 
for  a  resolution,  a  few  minutes  since,  which  de- 
clares that  there  is  no  adequate  cause  now  exist- 
ing to  impel  me  to  dissolve  my  connection  with 
my  Government,  and  now  I  am  called  upon  to 
support  this  amendment,  wdrich,  in  my  judgment, 
is  an  indirect  attempt  at  secession,  or,  in  other 
words,  it  pledges  Missouri  to  secede  upon  certain 
contingencies  that  may  result  from  the  action  of 
other  States. 

Mr.  President,  this  is  one  of  the  attempted  in- 
roads of  secession  by  the  enemies  of  my  country ; 
with  this  view  of  the  amendment,  and,  if  I  know 
anything  of  my  own  heart,  I  know  that  there 
is  not  one  drop  of  secession  blood  flowing  in  my 
veins ;  therefore,  with  all  pleasure  imaginable  to 
myself,  and  believing  I  am  reflecting  the  will 
of  my  constituents,  I  vote  no. 

Mr.  Hendrick.  Mr.  President,  I  wish  very 
riefly  to  explain  my  reasons  for  casting  my  vote 


against  this  amendment.  The  amendments  to 
the  Constitution  proposed  by  the  Hon.  John  J. 
Crittenden,  extending  to  territory  hereafter  to  be 
acquired,  I  consider  a  fair  basis  of  adjustment. 
And  when  presented  for  the  consideration  of  the 
conservative  men  of  the  Northern  States  in  term 
of  becoming  respect,  without  cringing  or  threat- 
ening, I  believe  they  will  meet  a  just  response; 
and,  in  the  language  of  the  resolution,  I  feel  very 
much  inclined  to  believe  they  will  successfully  re- 
move the  causes  of  difference  from  the  arena  of 
national  politics.  I  will,  therefore,  vote  for  the 
resolution  as  it  is. 

The  amendment  is  objectionable  because  it  de- 
clares that  if  such  adjustment  is  not  obtained,  and 
the  rest  of  the  slave  States  withdraw  from  the 
Union,  Missouri  will  withdraw  also.  The  amend- 
ment fixes  an  ultimatum,  and  acknowledges  the 
legal  right  of  secession,  which  I  cannot  indorse. 

When  I  was  a  candidate  before  the  people  I  de- 
clared, in  unequivocal  language,  that  under  all 
existing  circumstances,  I  was  positively  in  favor 
of  the  Union,  and  unconditionally  opposed  to  se- 
cession, because  I  could  not  recognize  any  legal 
right  in  a  State  to. secede  The  right  of  revolu- 
tion I  did  not  deny  for  adequate  cause.  For  in- 
stance, if  the  General  Government  were  to  become 
so  oppressive  and  unjust  as  to  render  the  condi- 
tion of  a  State  intolerable,  and  no  remedy  in  the 
Union  could  be  had,  the  ends  of  its  creation  would 
be  defeated,  and  the  State  would  adopt  revolu- 
tionary measures  at  the  hazard  of  the  pains  and 
penalties  of  treason.  There  is  no  such  cause  ex- 
isting or  likely  to  exist. 

Missouri  came  to  be  an  integral  part  of  the 
United  States  by  treaty  of  purchase,  which  is  the 
supreme  law.  And  she  came  to  be  a  sister 
State  in  this  Confederacy  by  an  act  of  Congress, 
which  is  also  the  supreme  law  of  the  land.  When 
the  people  of  Missouri  Territory  applied  to  be  ad- 
mitted into  the  Union,  they  did  so  with  their  eyes 
open ;  they  saw  and  understood  the  Constitution, 
and  consented  to  be  governed  by  it.  The  Consti- 
tution was  not  a  compact  between  the  States  im- 
posing mutual  conditions  and  restrictions  to  be 
reciprocally  observed,  and  if  violated  by  one  State 
liable  to  be  declared  broken  and  at  an  end  by  the 
rest  of  the  States,  and  the  Union  dissolved.  But 
the  provisions  of  the  Constitution  were  law,  pos- 
sessing all  the  elements  of  law,  with  ample  ca- 
pacity for  its  own  enforcement.  An  act  passed 
by  the  Legislature  conflicting  with  the  Constitu- 
tion is  no  breach  of  a  compact,  but  it  is  in  effect 
null  and  void,  and  is  no  cause  for  declaring  the 
Constitution  no  longer  binding  upon  the  other 
States.  Unconstitutional  acts  of  the  State  Legis- 
latures are  no  cause  for  severing  the  Union.  The 
constitutional  remedy  is  to  declare  them  void. 
This  we  knew  when  when  we  accepted  the  Con- 
stitution and  consented  to  submit  to  these  provis- 
ions.   Missouri  is  a  sister  State  by  virtue  of  the 


221 


supreme  law  of  the  land,  and  no  State  ordinance 
of  secession  can  abrogate  it. 

For  these  sentiments,  I  was  elected  and  sent 
here.  The  amendment  proposed  looks  to  an  event 
upon  the  happening  of  which  she  will  secede. 
That  event  would  be  no  cause  for  secession,  and 
for  that  reason  I  vote  no.  Besides,  the  amend- 
ment is  in  the  nature  of  a  threat,  unnecessary* 
and  conv  quemly  would  be  repulsive  to  the 
Northern  people,  and  tender  inducements  to  tie 
border  States  to  secede,  whereas  we  ought  to 
offer  them  inducements  to  remain  in  the  Union 
with  us. 

Mr.  Hudgins.  I  shall  vote  for  the  amend- 
ment, because  I  believe  that  such  a  proposition  is 
necessary  to  be  connected  with  that  resolution,  in 
order  to  make  it  represent  the  sentiments  of  the 
people  of  the  State  of  Missouri.  I  believe  that, 
under  existing  circumstances,  nerve  is  necessary. 
I  believe  that  Missouri  is  respected  by  the  other 
border  States ;  that  she  must  say  that  she  will  act 
with  those  States,  and  I  hold  that  that  resolution 
is  what  should  be  said  by  the  State  of  Missouri. 
It  is  what  I  feel  to  be  right  myse'f,  and  I  have 
nothing  to  withhold  from  the  Convention,  or  that 
part  of  the  State  that  I  have  the  honor  to  repre- 
sent here.  That  amendment  fully  accords  with 
my  feelings  upon  the  subject,  and  my  action  in 
the  future,  and  I  have  no  hesitation  in  voting  aye. 

Mr.  Irwin.  I  have  taken  no  active  part  in  the 
discussion  which  has  been  progressing  upon 
this  floor  for  the  last  few  days.  I  have  been 
rather  a  listener  than  a  speaker.  But,  sir,  it  is  a 
duty  that  I  owe  to  myself,  and  to  the  people 
whom  I  represent,  that  I  shall  have  a  word  or 
two  to  say  in  reference  to  the  reasons  which  will 
actuate  me  in  voting  on  this  amendment. 

In  my  county,  sir,  I  was  asked  the  question  du- 
ring the  canvass,  whether,  in  case  the  border 
slave  States  should  dissolve  their  connection  with 
the  Union,  I  was  in  favor  of  Missouri  taking  her 
position  in  the  South  or  in  the  North.  I  an- 
swered that  I  was  a  Union  man,  and  that  I  was 
not  for  going  either  North  or  South.  I  was  in 
favor  of  Missouri  staying  just  where  she  is.  I 
was  in  favor  of  her  contending  and  battling  for 
her  rights  in  the  Union,  not  out  of  it.  I  wanted 
Missouri  to  stand  under  the  Constitution,  and  un- 
der the  flag  of  my  country— that  flag  which  has 
waved  so  proudly  over  land  and  sea,  under  the 
folds  of  which  we  have  enjoyed  security,  pros- 
perity and  peace.  But,  sir,  I  said  further,  that 
whenever  that  time  arrived  when  Missouri  should 
be  compelled  to  take  her  stand  either  with  the 
North  or  with  the  South,  whenever  separation 
must  come,  I  was  in  favor  of  Missouri  iden- 
tifying herself  with  the  South.  I  stand  there  to- 
day, sir,  and  I  assume  the  same  position  here 
which  I  assumed  before  my  constituents,  which 
is,  that  I  do  not  believe  that  Kentucky, 
Tennessee,  North  Carolina,  and  the  other  slav„ 


States,  are  ever  going  to  leave  this  Union,  unless 
it  is  for  a  reason  that  would  justify  revolu- 
tion. Whenever  the  alternative  is  presented  to 
Missouri,  that  she  must  either  be  degraded — as 
was  remarked  by  the  gentleman  from  St.  Louis, 
true  liberty  knows  no  degradation — I  say,  when- 
ever the  alternative  is  presented  that  Missouri 
must  either  be  degraded  and  trampled  upon,  or 
resort  to  the  right  of  revolution,  I  shall  advise 
her  to  take  the  latter  course.  But  I  do  not  believe 
that  we  shall  ever  be  driven  to  this  alternative.  I 
have  a  firm  and  abiding  faith  that  an  amicable 
adjustment  between  the  North  and  the  South 
will  be  effected  by  the  interposition  of  the  border 
States.  Upon  that  presumption,  I  said  I  was 
willing  to  risk  the  destiny  of  Missouri  with  that 
of  the  other  border  slave  States;  and  I  stand 
here  today  holding  the  same  views,  entertaining 
the  same  fervent  hopes,  with  the  flag  of  my  coun- 
try before  me,  and  that  bird,  the  emblem  of  my 
country's  liberty,  looking  down  upon  this  con- 
gregated body,  as  it  were  with  anxious  solici- 
tude; and  I  say,  with  such  surroundings,  here  in 
this  great  State,  great  in  extent,  great  in  the  num- 
ber of  her  population,  great  in  her  commercial 
and  agricultural  and  industrial  and  educational 
interests;  and,  above  all,  as  recent  events  have 
developed,  great  in  the  patriotism  which  burns  in 
the  hearts  of  her  citizens — I  say  with  all  these 
surroundings,  I  cannot  but  hope  that  this  Union 
may  be  preserved.  I  believe  there  is  too  much 
patriotism  and  too  much  conservatism  in 
the  border  States,  ever  to  suffer  a  govern- 
ment like  this  to  be  dissolved— a  Government 
the  very  foundations  of  which  are  laid  in  the 
purest  patriotism  that  ever  ardorned  the  history, 
of  a  nation — a  Government  the  very  tttones  of 
which  are  cemented  with  the  blood  and  tears  of 
patriots — a  Government  that  has  showered  upon 
us  innumerable  blessings  from  the  time  of  its 
foundation  down  to  the  present  hour.  But,  not- 
withstanding I  take  this  position,  I  can  yet  not 
vote  for  the  amendment  offered  to  the  resolution, 
and  my  reason  for  it  is  this,  I  am  opposed  to 
Missouri,  at  the  present  time,  saying  to 
Virginia,  Kentucky,  Tennessee  and  North 
Carolina,  to  any  or  all  of  the  border  slave 
States,  "  If  you  will  do  this  or  if  you  will  do 
that,  we  will  do  thus  and  so."  I  am  opposed  to 
saying  any  such  thing,  and  that  is  just  what  the 
amendment  amounts  to.  As  I  have  already  said, 
I  am  in  favor  of  Missouri  co-operating  with  the 
border  slave  States,  in  bringing  about  an  amica- 
ble adjustment.  I  am  in  favor  of  Missouri  res- 
ponding to  the  call  for  a  Convention,  in  which 
delegates  from  the  various  States  may  meet  to- 
gether— men  without  preconceived  notions  and 
dogmas,  and  with  minds  open  to  conviction.  But 
I  want  the  delegates  from  Missouri  to  go  there  un- 
trammeled  with  reference  to  any  course  of  poli- 
cy.   I  want  them  to  understand   that  Missouri 


222 


will  approve  of  the  Crittenden  Compromise,  but 
yet  that  Missouri  will  accede  to  any  other  com- 
promise or  equitable  plan  of  adjustment.  Be- 
lieving, then,  that  this  amendment  looks  to  an 
ultimatum,  for  with  it  a  construction  may  be 
placed  upon  the  resolution  to  the  effect  that  if 
the  North  will  not  accept  the  Crittenden  pro- 
position, we  will  not  listen  to  any  other,  I  shall 
vote  no. 

Mr.  Moss.  In  the  explanation  of  my  vote,  I 
shall  say  this,  that  I  have  been  waiting  for  a  week, 
and  trying  to  get  this  Convention  to  assent  to  a 
proposition  pledging  Missouri  to  some  action  in 
the  attempt  to  save  this  Union.  I  am  willing, 
now,  for  Missouri  to  say  what  she  will  do  to  pre- 
serve this  Union;  but,  sir,  as  for  saying  what 
Missouri  shall  do,  when  the  Union  is  finally  de- 
stroyed, and  we  are  to  have  a  government  North, 
and  one  South,  I  have  never  fixed  any  policy  in 
my  mind  for  Missouri  to  pursue  under  such  cir- 
cumstances. As  I  remarked  a  few  days  ago,  I 
jook  not  beyond  the  Union  for  Missouri's  fate. 
I  do  not  undertake  to  work  out  any  line  of  policy 
that  she  shall  pursue  when  this  Government  is 
hopelessly  destroyed.    I  therefore  vote  no. 

Mr.  Noell.  The  point  involved  in  this  amend- 
ment, was  made  during  the  canvass  in  the  Twen- 
ty-sixth Senatorial  District.  I  have  the  honor, 
in  part,  to  represent  that  District,  and  I  was 
asked  what  I  would  do  in  the  event  that  all  the 
other  border  States  went  out  of  the  Union.  I  re- 
plied that  I  did  not  like  to  think  of  Missouri,  or  any 
other  border  State,  going  out  of  the  Union  at 
all_that  I  wanted  her  to  stay  in  the  Union :  but 
that,  if  such  a  thing  should  unfortunately  come 
to  pass — if  Virginia,  Kentucky,  Maryland,  and 
the  other  Border  States,  did  have  to  go  out  of  the 
Union,  I  would  be  for  standing  by  our  sister  bor- 
der States ;  and  believing  that  to  be  the  senti. 
ment  of  my  constituents,  although  they  are  Union 
people  and  love  the  Union  dearly,  I  shall  vote 
aye. 

Mr.  Norton.  I  desire  to  claim  the  indul- 
gence of  the  Convention  whilst  I  explain  in  a 
few  words  the  reasons  which  shall  control  my 
vote  on  the  amendment  now  before  the  Conven- 
tion. Looking  to  the  act  of  the  Legislature  call- 
ing this  body  together,  and  this  Convention,  be- 
ing restricted  in  the  objects  for  its  deliberations  to 
the  consideration  of  the  present  relations  ex- 
isting between  the  people  of  this  State  and 
the  Federal  Government,  and  the  relations 
existing  between  the  people  of  this  State 
and  the  other  States,  our  business  here  is 
to  deal  with  our  present  relations  to  the 
Federal  Government,  and  not  with  future 
relations,  which  may  never  exist.  We  have 
our  hands  full  in  taking  care  of  the  pres- 
ent. It  is  our  object  to  inaugurate  a  policy  in 
conjunction  with  the  border  slave  States,  which 
will  bring  about  a  fair,    honorable  and   just  ad- 


justment of  all  present  troubles,  now  and  forever. 
This  amendment  contemplates  that  such  an  ad- 
justment of  these  difficulties  will  not  be  made.  I 
do  not  believe  that  such  will  be  the  result;  on 
the  contrary,  whenever  the  Crittenden  proposi- 
tions are  submitted  to  the  people  of  the  North 
free  from  the  influence  of  the  corrupt  politicians 
and  demagogues  of  the  North,  I  believe  that 
they  will  be  adopted  in  every  Northern 
State.  Thus  believing,  I  do  not  think 
that  we  should  here  anticipate  an  event, 
which,  in  my  judgment,  will  never  hap- 
pen. When  that  event  does  come,  and  all  the 
slaveholding  States  dissolve  their  connection  with 
the  Federal  Government  the  course  of  Missouri  is 
plain.  Her  sympathies,  her  feelings,  tics  of 
blood  and  kindred  would  cause  her  to  stand  side 
by  side  with  Kentucky,  Tennessee  and  Virginia. 
My  individual  feelings,  sir,  are  with  them,  and 
whenever  that  dark  day  does  come,  Missouri,  in 
my  judgment,  will  do  her  whole  duty,  and  take 
her  stand  by  her  sisters  of  the  South.  If  that 
state  of  case  were  now  upon  us  there  would  be 
no  room  for  hesitancy.  This,  however,  now  sir, 
is  not  the  case,  and  our  mission  here  is  with  the 
present  and  not  with  the  future.  In  the  lan- 
guage of  my  friend  from  Ray,  "Sufficient  unto 
the  day  is  the  evil  thereof."  We  should  do  noth- 
ing here  to  prevent  a  peaceful  termination  of  pres- 
ent difficulties,  and  as  the  amendment  proposed 
offers  an  olive  branch  in  one  hand  and  a  war- 
club  in  the  other,  and  has  thus  a  tendency  rather 
to  retard  than  facilitate  the  object  we  all  desire,  I 
vote  nay. 

Mr.  Woolfolk.  I  would  not  be  understood, 
Sir,  in  voting  against  this  amendment,  to  indorse 
its  opposite.  I  should  unhesitatingly  vote  against 
its  opposite — that  we  would  remain  with  the 
North  if  the  other  slave  States  abandoned  the 
Union.  I  have  no  doubt,  Sir,  that  if  causes  ever 
arise  to  drive  the  other  border  slave  States  from 
the  Union,  the  same  causes  will  influence  Mis- 
souri to  take  her  position  with  them.  When 
causes  arise  to  justify  Kentucky,  Maryland  and 
Virginia  in  revolution,  I  expect  to  be  a  rebel  my- 
self. Missouri  will  never  abandon  the  South 
when  the  South  is  right;  she  will  never  tamely 
permit  the  Northern  Vandal  to  plant  the  heel  of 
despotism  upon  her  bosom.  I  shall  vote  against 
the  amendment  because  it  is  premature, 
speculative,  and  unnecessary.  It  is  also 
an  ultimatum  in  disguise.  But  I  shall 
vote  against  it  more  especially  because 
its  language  is  degrading  to  the  sovereign  people 
of  Missouri.  It  does  not  pledge  her  to  joint  ac- 
tion with  the  other  border  slave  States,  but  it 
commits  her  to  an  inferior  position.  It  commits 
her  to  the  position  of  saying  she  will  not  act  up- 
her  own  discretion,  she  will  not  assert  her  own 
sovereignty,  but  will  follow  where  the  other  bor- 


223 


der  slave  States  shall  lead,  abandoning  her  right 
to  an  equal  share  in  their  councils. 

We  are  here,  sir,  to  represent  the  sovereign 
people  of  Missouri,  not  the  people  of  any  other 
State.  We  are  here  to  say  what  causes  will  impel 
the  State  of  Missouri  to  revolution,  not  what  we 
will  do  if  other  States  revolutionize.  The  bor- 
der State  of  Missouri  will  act  in  concert  with  the 
other  border  slave  States,  but  she  should  be  too 
proud  of  her  own  sovereignty  to  blindly  commit 
herself  to  follow  the  lead  of  any  State  that  acts 
without  consulting  her.  If  this  amendment  were 
adopted,  I  see  no  reason  for  this  Convention  here 
to-day.  I  see  no  meaning  in  State-rights  or  State- 
sovereignty.  I  see  no  reason  why  we  should 
meet  the  other  slave  States  in  Convention,  if  we 
pledge  ourselves  in  advance  to  be  governed  by 
their  action  whatever  that  action  may  be. 

Mr.  Phillips.  In  the  canvass,  the  question 
was  repeatedly  put  to  me :    In  the  event  that  the 
Border    States    shall   pursue   a   certain  line   of 
policy,    whether   or   not     I  would   be    willing 
to  pledge    Missouri    to   co-operate   with  them. 
My  answer   was  this :    That  I  was  in  favor  of 
Missouri    co-operating  with   the    border    slave 
States  for  the  purpose  of  adjusting  our  difficulties; 
that,  if  every  energetic  effoit,  and  every  patriotic 
sacrifice,  if  every  christian  prayer  and  burning 
tear  should  fail  to  save  this  Union,  I  was  in  favor, 
not  as  a  remedy,  but  as  a  last  resort,  of  Missouri 
casting  her  destiny  with  that  of  the  border  slave 
States,    and     that     the    border    slave    States 
should    take    that    position    where    their    in- 
terests   and    institutions  would    be    best   pro- 
tected. Where  that    position  would   be,   I  did 
not  pretend  to  say,  nor  can  I  now  undertake 
to  say  as  much.    I  was  opposed  to  ultimatums, 
and  my  objection,  sir,  to  this  amendment  is  this : 
that  it  goes  before  the  people  of  the  North  with  a 
defined    proposition— Mohammed   like,   with  a 
sword  in  one  hand  and  a  koran  in  the  other.    It 
goes  before  the  people  of  the  North  with  a  defined 
proposition  in  one  hand,  and  in  the  other  a  cudgel, 
and  saying   if  you  don't  take  this,  you    shall 
have  the  benefit  of  that.    I  am  opposed,  sir,  to 
anything  of  that  sort.    Besides,  sir,  the  probabili- 
ty is  that  we  shall  be  called  upon  to  co-operate 
with  Virginia  and    our  sister  border  States    in 
a    Convention  to  be    held   at  Frankfort.    We 
are  to   meet    there,   for  what?     To    ascertain 
what    the    wishes    of   the    slave    States    are, 
what  we  want.     And  is  it  proper  for  Missouri,  in 
supporting  this  amendment,  to  take  an  action  that 
will  forestall  the  action    of  the  Convention  at 
Frankfort.    Is  it  proper  for  us  to  say,  gentlemen, 
if  you  don't  take  what  we  want,  we  will  have 
nothing  else.    Certainly  not.    We  are  to  ascer- 
tain what  they  want  and  what  we  want ;  we  should 
meet  together  with  them,  and  agree  upon  some 
principle    of    adjustment,    and   not     go   there 
and    offer  to  them  an    ultimatum.     For  that, 


if  for  no  other  reason,  I  should  be  opposed 
to  the  amendment.  It  will  be  time  enough, 
after  we  have  exhausted  all  other  means  for 
a  settlement  of  these  difficulties,  to  say  what 
we  will  do.  We  have  come  here  to  bring 
about  an  amicable  adjustment.  We  have  not 
come  here  in  a  spirit  of  threat  or  menace  or  to 
drive  the  people  into  an  adjustment.  It  is  our 
duty  to  act  in  a  spirit  of  compromise,  forbearance 
and  conciliation;  and  it  is  by  that  means,  and  by 
that  means  alone,  that  we  can  settle  our  difficul- 
ties if  they  can  be  settled  at  all.    I  vote  no. 

Mr.  Redd.  In  order  to  explain  the  reasons 
why  I  shall  vote  for  this  amendment,  it  will  be 
necessary  for  me  to  look  at  the  connection  be- 
tween the  resolution  and  the  amendment.  The 
resolution  proposes  the  Crittenden  proposition  as 
the  basis  upon  which  the  people  of  Missouri  will 
be  willing  to  adjust  the  present  difficulties,  and 
upon  which  the  differences  now  existing  would 
be  removed  from  the  arena  of  National  politics. 
The  amendment  declares  that  in  the  event  that 
the  Northern  States  do  not  agree  to  such  adjust- 
ment, and  the  other  border  States  will  leave  the 
Union,  Missouri  will  cast  her  destiny  with  the 
South. 

I  call  the  attention  of  the  Convention  particu- 
larly to  the  phraseology  of  the  amendment,  viz : 
"In  <^ase  the  North  should  not  agree  to  such  ad- 
justment." What  does  that  mean?  Does  it 
mean,  as  gentlemen  seem  to  think,  that  if  they 
refuse  the  Crittenden  proposition,  no  other  propo- 
sition can  be  entertained  ?  No.  We  recommend 
the  Crittenden  proposition  as  a  basis,  that  in  pur 
opinion  will  do  a  certain  thing,  namely,  remove 
the  cause  of  difference  from  the  arena  of  National 
politics.  Now,  the  amendment  says,  that  "if 
they  refuse  to  agree  to  such  an  adjustment,"  &c. 
What  adjustment?  Why,  such  an  adjustment  as 
will  effect  the  results  attached  to  the  Crittenden 
propositions  in  the  original  resolution.  "If  they 
refuse  to  agree  to  any  adjustment  or  settlement 
that  will  remove  the  causes  of  difference  from 
the  arena  of  National  politics" — that  is  the  Ian. 
guage. 

[Here  Mr.  Redd  was  interrupted  by  Mr. 
Phillips,  who  contended  that,  by  the  wording  of 
the  amendment  and  the  resolution,  the  Crittenden 
proposition  was  offered  as  an  ultimatum,  and  not 
as  a  proposition  merely  to  be  recommended.] 

Mr.  Redd.  I  do  not  agree  with  the  gentleman 
in  his  construction  of  the  amendment.  I  take  the 
amendment  to  mean  that,  if  the  Northern  States 
refuse  to  agree  to  such  an  adjustment  as  will  have 
the  effect  referred  to,  and  if,  after  such  refusal, 
our  sister  slave  States,  that  are  yet  with  us  in  the 
Union,  withdraw,  then  Missouri  will  take  a  firm 
and  decided  stand  in  favor  of  her  Southern  sis- 
ters. Surely,  in  that  case,  she  can  do  nothing 
else  consistently  with  her  honor.  She  cannot  re- 
main with  the  Northern  States  after  such  refusal. 


224 


She  cannot  consent  to  submit  to  a  government 
which  is  administered  npon  the  dogmas  of  the 
anti-slavery  party. 

I  do  not  object  to  the  resolution,  but  I  must  say 
that  its  terms  are  not  strong  and  explicit  enough 
for  me.  It  does  not  tell  the  whole  truth.  It  does 
not  say  that  when  that  contingency  arrives  Mis- 
souri will  take  her  stand  beside  her  sister  slave 
States  out  of  the  Union.  I  am  not  afraid  to  com- 
mit Missouri  to  that  policy.  Let  me  warn  the 
gentlemen  of  this  Convention — if  this  Convention 
votes  down  that  amendment  what  will  the  people 
say?  The  objection  is  urged,  you  make  an  ulti- 
matum. That  is  not  true.  But  I  say  that  by  vot- 
ing it  down  you  do  make  an  ultimatum.  And 
what  is  that?  It  is  the  enunciation  that,  under 
under  all  circumstances,  in  every  contingency, 
you  will  sacrifice  our  institutions  and  con- 
stitutional rights  to  the  North.  It  is  saying  to 
the  anti-slavery  party,  we  won't  go  out,  though 
all  the  balance  go.  I  am  opposed  to  any 
such  thing.  I  believe  the  border  States  should 
state  an  ultimatum.  They  should  concede  every- 
thing that  can  be  conceded  consistently  with  their 
honor,  but  after  they  have  made  that  concession, 
they  should  present  an  ultimatum;  and  what 
would  be  the  character  of  that  ultimatum  ?  Sim- 
ply this,  that  the  North  should  not  violate  the  let- 
ter of  the  Constitution  in  the  future. 

Sir,  after  this  Convention  votes  down  that 
amendment,  they  will  make  secessionists  by  the 
hundreds,  thousands,  in  the  State  of  Missouri. 
That  will  be  its  effect.  And  because  I  am  op- 
posed to  secession;  until  Ave  can  give  the  plan 
we'may  adopt  for  adjustment  a  fair  trial,  I  will 
oppose  everything  that  will  tend  to  drive  Missou- 
ri out  of  the  Union.  I  have  lately  heard  from 
my  own  county.  The  Inaugural  of  the  Presi- 
dent, and  the  course  of  this  Convention  in  regard 
to  it,  have  had  their  effect  in  that  county.  There 
is  to-day  flying  from  the  summit  of  its  temple  of 
justice  a  fhig,  and  upon  that  flag  is  a  rattlesnake 
upon  a  white  field,  and  below  it  is  the  motto : 
"  Do  not  tread  on  me."  Gentlemen,  if  you 
pledge  Missouri  to  stand  by  the  North,  you  will 
see  those  rattlesnake  flags  flying  to  the  breeze  all 
over  the  State.  Yes,  you  will  see  them ;  and  sur- 
rounded here,  as  I  am,  by  an  outside  pressure  of 
this  great  Republican  party — while  I  am  no  se- 
cessionist, yet  I  am  proud  of  old  Marion  for  do- 
ing as  she  has  done.  She  has  shown  that  she  de- 
serves the  name  she  bears.  It  is  the  name  of  the 
noble  old  warrior  that  stood  up  against  oppres- 
sion .  When  you  undertake  to  attach  Missouri 
to  the  Northern  States,  after  all  her  sisters  have 
been  driven  out,  she  will  be  in  a  condition 
like  Prometheus  chained  to  a  rock,  with  the  vul- 
ture of  Abolitionism  feeding  upon  her  vitals. 

Mr.  Sawyer.  I  have  hitherto  occupied  no 
portion  of  the  time  of  this  Convention,  but  I 
deem  it  a  duty  which  I  owe  to  myself  and  my 


constituents  to  say  a  few  words  in  relation  to  the 
vote  I  am  about  to  give.  I  represent,  in  part, 
on  this  floor,  a  district  situated  in  the  heart 
of  the  hemp  growing  region  of  this  State 
— a  district  owning  nearly  one-eighth  of 
the  entire  slave  population  of  the  State, 
and  having  an  intense  feeling  upon  the 
subject  which  now  agitates  the  public  mind, 
I  cannot  better  explain  the  reasons  for  the  vote 
which  I  am  about  to  give,  than  by  briefly  stating 
the  position  I  occupied  in  the  canvass  preceding 
the  election.  The  grounds  taken  by  me  distinct- 
ly and  unequivocally — for  there  was  no  dodging 
and  there  was  no  equivocation  whatever  in  the 
positions  which  I  laid  down  to  that  people — were, 
in  the  first  place,  that  the  difficulties  which  now 
agitate  this  country  must  be  settled,  or  Missouri 
was  inevitably  ruined.  I  stated  that  I  was  wil- 
ling to  accept  the  Crittenden  proposition  as  a 
basis  of  adjustment,  or  an  equivalent  to  that 
proposition,  which  was  as  little,  as  I  thought, 
Missouri  should  accept. 

Now,  sir,  what  does  this  amendment  contem- 
plate? The  original  resolution  proposes  distinct- 
ly, the  adoption  of  the  Crittenden  proposition 
as  a  fair  basis  of  settlement.  To  that,  sir,  I 
accede  most  heartily.  The  amendment  simply 
proposes  that  in  the  event  of  a  failure  to  settle 
this  question,  not  upon  the  Crittenden  basis,  but 
upon  the  failure  of  an  adjustment  of  these  diffi- 
culties, and  upon  the  further  event  that  all  the  re- 
maining slave  States  shall  go  out  of  the  Union, 
then  Missouri  most  unmistakeably  will  take  her 
position  with  her  Southern  sisters.  That,  I  un- 
derstand, sir,  to  be  the  whole  of  it.  If  I  under- 
stood that  this  amendment  laid  down  the  Crit- 
tenden proposition  as  an  ultimatum,  and  that  it 
precluded  the  settlement  of  this  question  upon 
any  other  basis  equivalent  to  that,  most  assured- 
ly, sir,  I  should  vote  against  the  amendment.  But 
I  understand  this  amendment  merely  proposes  to 
express  the  opinion  of  Missouri,  that  in  the  event 
of  no  adjustment  whatever  of  a  satisfactory  charac- 
ter, and  that  furthermore  the  remaining  slave 
States  shall  leave  this  Union,  then  Missouri's  in- 
terest is  unquestionably  with  the  South.  Sir,  I 
accede  to  that  proposition  most  heartily;  and  I 
say  I  would  be  false  to  the  pledges  which  I  made, 
if  I  should  fail,  under  the  circumstances,  to  vote 
for  the  amendment.    I  therefore  vote  aye. 

Mr.  Shackelford,  of  Howard.  It  is  with 
shame  and  mortification  that  I  see  such  an 
amendment  as  this  offered  in  this  Convention.  I 
do  not  mean  anything  disparaging  to  the  gentle- 
men who  are  supporting  it.  I  am  willing  to  con- 
cede to  them  the  patriotism  that  is  burning  in  my 
own  heart.  But,  sir,  have  they  looked  at  the  con- 
sequences of  the  passage  of  that  amendment? 
Have  they  considered  it?  Why,  sir,  the  curse  of 
our  country— that  which  has  brought  us  to  our 
present  deplorable  condition — is  the  practice  of 


225 


designing  politicians  to  look  into  the  future  and 
imagine  evils  and  excite  the  apprehensions  of  the 
people,  because  such  and  such  a  thing  may  or 
may  not  happen.  Has  not  that  been  the  curse 
under  which  we  have  been  laboring  ?  Is  not  that 
what  we  have  been  contending  against?  Has 
not  that  brought  us  to  this  verge  of  ruin?  And 
now,  do  not  my  friends  consider — for  I  want 
to  call  them  my  friends  and  my  breth- 
ren—the effect  of  this?  They  tell  us  they 
want  to  take  this  question  outside  of  party 
polities.  Yes,  sir,  take  it  from  the  arena  of  Na- 
tional politics;  and  where  do  they  want  to  put  it? 
Right  at  our  own  doors.  Right  at  our  own  doors 
to  excite  our  own  people.  Have  the  supporters 
of  this  amendment  weighed  the  consequences  of 
this?  My  friend  from  Marion  says  that  the  refu- 
sal to  pass  this  amendment  would  makesecession- 
ist<  by  thousands.  He  says  that  it  is  not  his  de- 
sire that  such  should  be  the  case,  but  it  will 
have  that  effect.  Yet  a  fire-brand  is  introduced 
and  advocated  which  is  acknowledged  to  hare 
an  effect  which  is  at  the  same  time  deprecated. 
Does  he  not  see  that  the  introduction  of  this 
amendment  has  for  its  only  object,  the  continu- 
ed agitation  of  the  slavery  question?  Does 
he  not  see  that  instead  of  pacifying  the 
public  mind  he  will  throw  a  fire-brand 
among  the  people  to  be  taken  up  by  petty  poli- 
ticians and  designing  men  for  the  purpose  of  ex- 
citing our  people  to  war  among  themselves? 
Why  should  we  express  such  a  sentiment 
as  this,  when  we  know  that  our  constituents 
are  faithful  to  the  Union,  faithful  to  the  Con- 
stitution, and  have  integrity  as  men  and  citi- 
zens and  will  act  with  honor  to  the  State  when 
the  exigency  of  the  times  calls  upon  them  to  act? 
I  would  respectfully  submit  to  the  Convention,  as 
to  whether  the  adoption  of  this  amendment  does 
not  say  to  our  border  sister  States,  we  will  not 
now  secede,  but  if  you  do  so,  we  will  follow.  Is 
this  right  ?  Nay,  I  say  is  it  a  mark  of  bravery  ? 
Unity  of  action  on  this  subject  with  the  Border 
Slave  States  will  alone  produce  harmony  amon  r 
our  own  citizens.  You  might  as  well  introduce 
a  resolution  in  this  body  that  the  people  of  Mis- 
souri are  all  honest  men,  and  then  tell  us  if  we 
vote  it  down  that  it  will  make  dishonest  men  by 
the  thousand. 

Mr.  President,  such  a  resolution  as  this  is  an 
insult  to  my  constituents,  because  it  puts  into  the 
hands  of  politicians  and  men  who  have  not  a 
particle  of  interest  in  the  slave  question,  the 
power  to  excite  an  agitation  among  our  people 
which  will  destroy  our  institutions. 

Mr.  President,  I  think  it  is  far  preferable  that 
we  should  present  these  and  similar  propositions 
through  our  delegates  in  a  Convention  of  the 
States.  We  can  there  get  our  ultimatums  by  the 
concurrrent  act  of  all  of  them.  That  is  the  best 
plan,  and  that  is  what  my  constituents  told  me 


in  effect,  while  our  sentiments  and  our  feelings 
and  in  my  opinion  our  interests,  called  us,  when 
the  last  hope  of  reconciliation  shall  perish,  to 
unite  our  destiny  with  our  Southern  brethren, 
yet  the  grand,  permanent  object  was  the  preser- 
vation of  this  glorious  Union. 

Was  not  that  the  position  that  you  and  I  took 
before  our  respective  constituencies?  Was  not 
that  the  position  which  you  and  I  occupied  before 
the  people,  when  we  told  them  that  we  were  not 
for  presenting  any  ultimatum,  or  any  thing  that 
squinted  towards  an  ultimatum?  But  when  the 
proper  occasion  should  arrive,  when  we  should 
meet  face  to  face  with  men  from  the  North,  repre- 
senting the  Northern  people,  then  we  would  pre- 
sent an  ultimatum,  if  necessary,  if  we  could  not 
get  our  rights  so  guaranteed  as  to  take  the  ques- 
tion forever  out  of  the  hands  of  politicians.  If 
then  we  can  not  have  peace  and  harmony,  we 
can  provide  for  a  peaceable  separation.  That,  sir, 
is  a  sufficient  reason  why  I  shall  vote  against  this 
amendment,  and  all  such  amendments;  and  I 
have  no  fear  of  the  result.  Such  a  course  does 
not  sacrifice  my  honor,  but  I  can  preserve  the 
peace  and  harmony  of  my  own  people  by  it. 

Mr.  Sheeley.  I  desire  to  say  a  few  words. 
When  I  consented  to  become  a  candidate  for  this 
Convention,  I  stated  I  would  take  the  Crittenden 
Compromise  as  the  basis  of  settlement,  though  I 
preferred  the  propositions  of  Mr.  Douglas,  and 
prefer  them  here  to-day.  But  I  was  willing  to 
take  them  as  a  basis,  and  would  co-operate  with 
the  border  States,  in  using  every  honorable 
means  for  an  adjustment  on  that  basis  so  long  as 
there  was  a  reasonable  hope  to  save  this  Union. 
The  question  was  propounded  to  me,  suppose 
that  everything  fails,  what  will  you  then  do?  I 
said  the  destiny  of  Missouri  was  South,  and  she 
was  bound  to  go  there.  Now,  sir,  this  is  is  not, 
as  I  understand  it,  an  ultimatum  at  all.  It  mere- 
ly declares  that  when  all  these  things  take  place, 
when  the  State  finds  that  the  Union  is  dissolved, 
and  all  the  States  go  out,  that  then— our  destiny 
is  with  the  South.  That  is  the  way  I  look  at  it; 
and  so,  too,  I  pledged  myself  to  the  people  of  my 
District.  I  must  either  vote  aye  or  violate  that 
pledge,  and  I  think  you  know  me  too  well  to 
think  that  I  ever  violate  a  pledge.  I  will  vote 
aye  on  this  amendment. 

Mr.  Smith,  of  Linn.  I  ask  the  indulgence  of 
the  Convention  for  a  few  moments,  while  I  state 
my  reasons  for  voting  against  this  amendment. 
It  has  been  attempted  to  cast  imputations  upon 
men  who  vote  against  this  amendment,  viz ; — 
that  by  their  votes  they  will  declare  to  the 
Northern  and  Southern  people,  that  we  in- 
tend to  keep  Missouri  in  the  Union  with 
the  Northern  people  under  any  and  all  circum- 
stances. The  position  which  I  took  before  my 
constituents,  was  about  this :  I  declared  myself 
to  be  a  Union  man ;  that  in  my  judgment  no  suf- 

15 


226 


ficient  cause  existed  that  would  justify  Missouri 
for  seceding  from  the  Federal  Government,  and 
I  pledged  myself  not  to  vote  for  an  ordinance  of 
secession  at  this  time.  I  further  pledged  myself 
to  use  every  exertion  in  my  power  to  bring  about 
conciliation,  and  a  fair  and  amicable  adjustment 
of  the  difflcuties  existing  between  the  extremes 
of  this  Government.  I  do  not  believe,  sir,  that  I 
can,  consistently  with  that  pledge,  vote  for  the 
amendment.  I  believe  it  would  operate  as  a  fire- 
brand among  the  people,  and  will  have  a  tenden- 
cy to  diminish,  if  not  destroy,  the  influence  of 
Missouri. 

I  object  to  the  amendment  for  another  reason : 
I  do  not  believe  that  Missouri  can  determine  for 
twelve  months,  or  perhaps  two  years,  whether 
she  ought  to  go  anywhere,  and  I  am  unwilling 
to  say  what  the  people  of  Missouri  will  do  two 
or  three  years  hence.  I  am  unwilling  to  act  upon 
anything,  sir,  except  the  present.  I  am  unwilling 
to  pledge  Missouri  to  any  course  in  the  future.  I 
believe  the  people  of  Missouri  will  be  just  as 
competent  twelve  months  hence,  or  five  years 
hence,  to  determine  their  interest  and  then- 
duty,  as  they  are  to-day.  And,  sir,  for  this  rea- 
son I  feel  it  my  duty  to  vote  against  the  amend- 
ment. 

I  regretted  to  hear  certain  remarks  from  the 
gentleman  from  Marion,  Mr.  Redd,  while  giving 
the  reasons  for  his  vote.     I  regretted  to  hear 
him  complain  of  the  active  outside  pressure  that 
has    been   working    upon   him   since    he    has 
been  in  this  Convention.    As  for  myself,  I  have 
met  with  no  such  pressure.    I  have  not  felt  any 
pressure  from  the  Republicans— from  Abolition- 
ists or  Secessionists.    Why  it  is  that  they  have 
pressed  or  disturbed  the  gentleman  from  Ma- 
rion I  do  not  know.    The   reason  why  I   was 
not  disturbed  is,  I  suppose,  that  people   regard 
me   as  a   man   of   some   intelligence   and   de- 
termination— a  man  who   would  carry  out  the 
promise  that  he  made  to  his  constituents.    This 
is  the  reason,  I  suppose,  that  I  have  not  felt  this 
outside  pressure  of  which  the  gentleman  com- 
plains.   I  regretted  to  hear  another  remark — he 
threatened  us  with  that  big  rattlesnake.  Now,  sir, 
I  can  inform  the  gentleman  from  Marion  that  rat- 
tlesnakes have  but  little  terror  to  Missourians,  es- 
pecially up  in  the  Northwest.  When  I  first  settled  in 
that  portion  of  the  State,  rattlesnakes  were  a  great 
deal  thicker  than  Secessionists  are  now,  and  we 
have   killed   them  all  out,  nearly.     [Laughter.] 
Secessionists,  too,  are  getting  to  be  about  as  scarce 
as  the  rattlesnakes.    But  I  tell  that  gentleman 
that  in   my  judgment,  the  snake  of  which  he 
speaks,  has  come  out  a  little  too  soon  in  the  season, 
for  this  latitude,  and  the  frost  and  ice  will  over- 
take him,  and  he  will  be  killed.     [Laughter.] 

Mr.  President,  as  I  have  no  desire  to  place  my- 
self on  the  record,  and  feeling  perfectly  satisfied 
that  the  intelligence  of  my  constituents  will  en- 


able them  to  determine  the  reasons  that  prompt 
me  for  every  vote  I  shall  give  here,  I  shall  detain 
the  Convention  no  longer,  but  vote  no. 

Mr.  Welch.  My  vote  upon  this  amendment 
is  governed  entirely  by  its  phraseology.  The 
sentiment  which  I  presume  the  gentleman  from 
Montgomery  desired  to  incorporate  in  it,  is  one 
which  would  meet  my  approbation,  if  put  in  a 
different  shape  and  expressed  by  different 
phraseology.  I  differ  with  the  gentleman  in 
the  construction  of  this  amendment,  and  I 
must  be  governed  by  my  own  judgment 
in  regard  to  the  matter.  The  original  reso- 
lution, if  I  understand  it,  sir,  pledges  this 
Convention,  and  the  people  of  the  State,  to  be 
satisfied  with  the  Crittenden  compromise.  The 
amendment,  in  my  judgment,  declares  that,  un- 
less the  North  will  yield  us  that  particular  propo- 
sition, and  unless  the  Border  States  shall  stay  in 
the  Union,  Missouri  will  go  out  also. 

Now,  sir,  while  I  heartily  approve  of  the  Critten- 
den propositions,  I  also  indorse  fully  as  well  the 
propositions  known  as  the  Douglas  propositions, 
and  I  am  willing  to  take  the  Border  States  pro- 
positions, and  would  be  satisfied  with  the  propo- 
sitions of  the  Peace  Congress.    In  the  words  of 
Mr.  Botts,  of  Virginia,  if  the  North  and  the  South 
will  only  agree  upon  some  basis  of  settlement,  I 
will  agree  and  never  ask  what  it  is.    I  am  willing, 
I  say,  that  either  of  these  propositions  shall  be 
adopted,  so  far  as  I  am  concerned,  and  while  I 
indorse  the  motive  and  the  purpose  which  the 
gentleman    from    Montgomery  had  in  offering 
the    amendment,    I   cannot     support    it   when 
it     is     connected    with    the    original    resolu- 
tion.   I  say  to  him  now,  that,  if  he  will  intro- 
duce  a   separate  resolution,   disconnected  with 
that  original  one  which    makes  the  Crittenden 
compromise  the  basis  of  settlement,  and  declar- 
ing that  when  all  compromise  shall  fail,  and  all 
the  Border  States  shall  leave  this  Confederacy, 
Missouri  will  go  too,  I  will  vote  for  a  proposition 
of  that  kind  very  cheerfully.    But,  sir,  I  cannot 
vote  for  this  amendment,  because  by  its  phraseol- 
ogy it  makes  the  settlement  of  our  difficulties  de- 
pendent on  the  adoption  of  the  Crittenden  compro- 
mise.  I  am  willing  to  take  any  compromise  which 
will  be  satisfactory  to  Border  States  or  the  South. 
The  Committee  on  Federal  Relations  have  sub- 
mitted a  proposition  calling  for  a  Border  States' 
Convention.    That  is  the  proper  tribunal  to  es- 
tablish an  ultimatum .    I  construe  this  amendment 
as  an  ultimatum,  and  as  pledging  Missouri  to 
abandon  the  Union  if  the  Crittenden  proposi- 
tions are  not  adopted,  together  with  the  addi- 
tional fact  that  the  remaining  Border  States  shall 
leave.    I  shall  therefore  vote  no. 

Mr.  Calhoun.  By  the  special  permission  of 
this  body,  although  I  have  already  voted,  I  will 
in  a  very  few  words  state  the  reasons  which 
prompted  me  in  giving  that  vote.    I  voted  aye 


227 


on  the  amendment  because  I  did  not  look  upon 
it  as  an  ultimatum.  So  far  as  I  could  understand 
from  its  wordings  the  Cnttenden  Compromise  or 
some  other  similar  proposition  was  recom- 
mended by  it  as  a  basis  of  adjustment, 
and  as  I  am  in  favor  of  the  Crittenden 
Compromise,  and  the  people  whom  I  have 
the  honor  to  represent  on  this  floor,  are  in 
favor  of  that  compromise,  I  felt  quite  wan-anted 
in  voting  for  it.  I  will  state  that  if  this  amend- 
ment is  to  be  regarded  in  the  light  of  an  ultima- 
tum, I  disapprove  of  it,  and  in  that  case  I  should 
ask  the  favor  of  this  body  to  change  my  vote.  I 
am  for  the  Crittenden  Compromise  or  any  other 
compromise  which  will  prove  satisfactory  to  the 
slaveholding  States.  I  would  not  stake  the  weal 
of  Missouri  on  the  adoption  of  that  particular 
compromise. 

As  for  the  other  feature  in  the  amendment,  name- 
ly, that  in  case  all  the  slave  States  should  go  out  of 
the  Union,  and  there  should  be  a  Northern  and  a 
Southern  confederacy,  Missouri  will  go  with  the 
South,  I  must  say  that  I  agree  to  it.  If  that  ca- 
lamity must  come,  (and  God  grant  that  it  never 
will  come!)  I  am  in  favor  of  Missouri  casting  her 
destiny  with  the  South.  But  I  fervently  hope  we 
shall  be  able  to  effect  a  peaceable  settlement,  and 
that  this  Union  will  continue.  I  believe  it  is  in 
our  power  to  bring  about  such  a  settlement,  and  I 
shall  never  think  of  leaving  this  Union  so  long 
as  there  is  any  hope  for  it.  Sir,  I  would  have 
been  willing  to  vote  for  the  report,  just  as  it  came 
from  the  committee,  for  it  is  a  report  breathing 
the  true  Union  sentiment.  But,  supposing  that 
there  was  nothing  in  the  amendment  which  con- 
flicted with  the  spirit  of  that  report,  I  voted  aye. 
I  shall  ask  leave  to  change  my  vote,  if  it  is  to  be 
looked  upon  as  an  ultimatum. 

Mr.  Henderson.  I  was  not  in  when  the  roll 
was  being  called.  I  desire  to  record  my  vote 
upon  this  proposition,  and  especially  do  I  desire 
to  do  it,  inasmuch  as  there  will  be  most  assuredly 
a  difference  between  myself  and  my  colleagues 
in  regard  to  it.  Since  I  have  heard  the  remarks 
of  my  friend,  Judge  Calhoun,  I  am  satisfied  that 
he  has  been  laboring  under  an  error  in  regard  to 
the  amendment.  I  was  laboring  under  an  error 
myself  until  I  went  and  got  the  amendment,  and 
in  order  that  I  may  be  corrected,  and  that  other 
gentlemen  who  seem  to  labor  under  the  same  mis- 
apprehension as  myself,  may  see  the  true  mean- 
ing of  the  amendment,  I  propose  to  read  both  the 
resolution  and  the  amendment. 

[Here  Mr.  Henderson  read  the  resolution  and 
amendment.] 

Now,  I  call  the  especial  attention  of  my  col- 
leagues to  the  monstrous  proposition  contained 
in  this  amendment.  If  we  adopt  it,  it  evidently 
commits  us  in  a  way  which  may  prove  extremely 
pernicious  to  the  interests  of  Missouri.  What 
was  the  position  which  we  took  in  the  canvass 


for  this  Convention  ?  Did  we  say  to  the  people, 
or  in  any  way  imply  by  what  we  said,  that  in 
case  a  certain  compromise  should  be  refused, 
Missouri  ought  to  secede?  Why,  sir,  I  stated 
distinctly,  and  my  colleagues  know  that 
I  did,  that  if  the  Cnttenden  proposition,  or 
the  Border  States  proposition,  or  the  Douglas 
proposition,  or  the  proposition  of  the  Peace  Con- 
ference failed  as  a  compromise,  that  we  would 
yet  not  secede.  But,  sir,  we  are  pledged  to  se- 
cession here — if  there  is  any  meaning  in  the  Eng- 
lish language— provided  this  one  solitary  propo- 
sition is  voted  down.  I  will  admit  that  the  fur- 
ther proposition  is  attached  to  it,  that  in  case  the 
other  border  States  shall  secede,  we  will  secede 
also.  Now  sir,  so  far  as  I  am  concerned,  I  dis- 
tinctly took  the  ground  that  if  every  Southern 
State  in  the  Union  should  secede,  Missouri 
then  would  have  a  proud  mission  to  per- 
form, and  that  would  be  to  assemble  to- 
gether delegates  from  every  State  in  this 
Union  once  more  in  Independence  Hall,  where 
the  Federal  Constitution  was  made,  and  that 
we  would  enter  into  the  confederacy  with< 
such  States,  North  and  South,  as  would  meet  us 
there,  and  once  more  cement  the  bonds  of  this 
Union. 

I  desire  now  to  ask  the  gentleman  who  offered: 
the  amendment  if  he  believes  in  the  constitu- 
tional right  of  a  State  to  secede?  I  pause  for  a 
reply. 

Mr.  Bast.  The  gentleman  entirely  misappre- 
hends the  scope  of  my  amendment.  It  has  noth- 
ing to  do  with  the  constitutional  right  of  seces- 
cession  at  all.  It  simply  states  that,  in  case  we 
should  be  unable  to  effect  a  satisfactory  adjust- 
ment of  existing  difficulties,  and  all  the  slave 
States  should  go  out  of  the  Union,  Missouri  will 
go  with  them.  I  should  like  to  see  the  Missourian 
who,  in  case  the  alternative  is  presented  of  a 
Northern  or  a  Southern  Confederacy,  will  not  be 
in  favor  of  Missouri  casting  her  destiny  with  the 
South. 

Mr.  Henderson.  The  gentleman  does  not 
answer  my  question.  I  ask  him  again  if  he  be- 
lieves in  the  constitutional  right  of  a  State  to  se- 
cede? 

Mr.  Bast.  I  have  already  stated  that  that 
question  is  not  involved  in  my  amendment  at  all ; 
when  it  comes  up  in  its  proper  connection,  I  will 
willingly  state  my  position  in  regard  to  it. 

Mr.  Henderson.  As  the  gentleman  does  not 
choose  to  answer  this  question  directly,  I  will  put 
to  him  another.  Did  he  vote  for  the  first  resolution 
of  the  Committee  on  Federal  Relations,  adopted  by 
the  Convention  ? 

Mr.  Bast.    No. 

Mr.  Henderson.  Then,  Mr.  President,  the 
gentleman  having  voted  against  the  first  resolu- 
tion, he  negatives  the  proposition  that  no 
sufficient  cause  now  exists  for  Missouri  to  dis- 


22S 


solve  her  eonnection  with  the  Federal  Govern- 
ment. If  that  be  true,  the  gentleman  sees  cause 
to-day  tor  dissolving  this  Union.  He  does  not 
desire  to  wait,  and,  sir,  this  ultimatum  (for  it  is 
an  ultimatum)  proposed  in  .his  amendment  only- 
looks  forward  at  the  early  period  when  the  people 
of  this  proud  State  shall  be  driven  headlong  into 
revolution.  Sir,  with  my  views,  believing  that 
no  State  has  the  constitutional  right  peaceably  to 
secede  from  the  Federal  Government — (I  am  not 
disponed  to  deny  the  revolutionary  right)— I  do 
not  see  that  that  right  could  be  conferred  upon 
us,  provided  even  that  the  Old  Dominion  should 
secede.  I  do  not  see  that,  with  a  proper  loyalty 
to  the  Federal  Constitution,  we  could  secede  mere- 
ly because  Maryland,  or  Tennessee,  or  Kentucky, 
or  any  other  State,  had  seceded.  Sir,  there  is  abet- 
ter remedy  proposed  than  that,  namely,  by  amend- 
ing our  Constitution,  as  it  now  exists.  Let  those 
amendments  be  offered,  and,  sir,  the  patriotic 
people  of  the  United  States  will  not  deny  justice 
to  any  portion  of  our  country.  If  the  laws  are 
defective  let  them  be  amended.  And,  sir,  the 
past  history  of  the  country  affords  us  the  greatest 
assurance  for  the  future  that  such  laws  will  ever 
be  provided  as  accord  justice  and  equality  to  every 
portion  of  the  eountry.  I  know  why  such  pro- 
positions as  this  are  offered  for  a  remedy.  They 
enable  designing  men  to  appeal  to  the  prejudice 
of  the  people.  They  afford  them  an  opportunity 
to  tell  the  people  that  this  or  that  man,  who  has 
voted  against  them,  is  a  Freesoiler  or  an  Aboli- 
tionist; and  they  are  calculated  to  give  full  play 
in  the  State  to  petty  demagogues  and  design- 
ing politicians.  Sir,  contemptible  pettifoggers 
and  miserable  politicians  seem  now  to  have 
seized  the  reins  of  government,  and  all  men 
who  look  to  peaceable  reforms— all  men  who 
look  to  a  restoration  of  that  tranquillity  and  hap- 
piness that  have  blessed  us  for  so  many  years, 
and  without  which  we  should  be  powerless,  are 
being  denounced  as  Republicans  and  Northern 
partisans. 

Mr.  President,  I,  for  one,  defy  all  their  efforts, 
and  all  their  wiles,  and  all  their  schemes  and  in- 
sinuations. I  have  made  up  my  mind  that  this 
is  the  best  government  upon  earth,  and  that  he 
who  would  attempt  to  tear  down  the  columns 
that  sustain  it,  or  mar  its  fair  proportions  in  any 
way,  is  a  traitor,  and  nothing  else.  When  I  say 
this,  I  wish  it  understood  that  when  my  rights 
as  an  American  citizen  are  denied  me,  and  op- 
pression becomes  the  rule  of  conduct  by  the  Gov- 
ernment, I  claim  the  right  of  revolution.  But  I 
do  not  claim  that  any  man  is  justifiable,  under 
any  of  the  grievances  of  the  present  day,  in  tear- 
ing down  the  fair  proportions  of  this  magnificent 
republic.  Every  means  are  being  resorted  to,  in 
these  days  of  wild  misrule  and  error,  as  the  gen- 
tleman from  St.  Louis,  the  other  day,  rightly  re- 
marked, to  present   propositions  appealing   to 


the  Southern  heart.  I  remember  that  a  good 
many  years  ago,  at  Hartford,  an  ultimatum 
was  presented  by  the  gentlemen  who  as- 
sembled there  in  Convention.  They  offered 
amendments  to  the  Federal  Constitution,  and  they 
declared  the  right  of  a  State  to  secede.  They  fur- 
thermore declared  that  if  their  rights  were  not  se- 
cured according  to  their  proposed  amendments, 
they  would  dissolve  their  connection  with  the 
Federal  Government  and  erect  New  England  into 
an  independent  confederacy.  What  has  become 
of  those  traitors  and  conspirators?  Where  now 
are  they,  Mr.  President?  Sir,  the  finger  of  scorn 
was  pointed  at  them,  and  they  have  gone  down 
the  stream  of  time,  an  object  of  contempt  and 
hatred  by  an  honest  people.  So,  also,  at  a  subse- 
quent period  in  our  history,  another  similar  at- 
tempt was  made,  and  it  was  visited  with  the 
same  scorn  by  an  indignant  people.  And  now, 
sir,  upon  this' occasion,  whatever  may  be  the  Up 
service  of  men,  if  their  actions  are  tending  to 
the  disruption  of  this  Union,  I  hope  and  trust 
that  the  same  scorn  may  overtake  them  as  trait- 
ors. 

Sir,  the  other  day  a  secession  flag  was  hung 
out  in  one  of  the  streets  of  this  city.  On  the  op- 
posite side  of  the  street  was  an  American  flag, 
with  the  names  of  Lincoln  and  Hamlin  inscribed 
upon  it.  Does  it  follow  that,  because  I  despise  that 
secession  flag,  I  should  owe  allegiance  to  the 
Republican  party,  who  had  hung  out  the  other 
flag?  Or  does  it  follow  that,  because  I  do  not 
approve  the  election  of  Lincoln  and  Hamlin  to 
the  supreme  offices  of  the  Government,  I  must 
needs  become  a  secessionist?  Surely  not.  So 
long  as  those  two  flags  were  suspends  1  in  the 
street,  although  a  great  many  people  crowded 
around  the  houses  from  which  they  were  sus- 
pended, and  the  excitement  among  them  ran 
high,  still  I  had  no  part  in  the  controversy.  But 
when  I  saw  the  American  stars  and  stripes  hoist- 
ed without  any  names  upon  it,  I  heard  a  shout 
rise  from  the  assembled  multitude  which  made  my 
heart  proud.  I  felt,  sir,  that  a  device  that  might 
be  put  upon  the  flag  of  my  country,  and  the 
piratical  flag  of  disunion,  were  both  to  be  thrown 
aside,  and  in  their  stead  was  to  be  the  flag  of  my 
country. 

Sir,  a  paper  has  been  established  in  this  city 
that  is  to  be  a  part  and  parcel  of  the  disunion 
scheme.  Conceived  in  iniquity,  brought  forth  in 
fraud,  having  been  the  result  of  a  combination  so 
mean  and  contemptible  that  it  deserves  the  execra- 
tion of  honest  men,  it  yet  comes  forward  upon  the 
world,  and  undertakes  to  denounce  men  for  be- 
ing patriots.  It  may  be  that  in  the  future,  it  will 
find  good  men  enough  on  whom  to  vent  its  spleen, 
its  malice  and  vituperation;  yet,  I  can  say 
that,  notwithstanding  the  corruptions  that  sur- 
round its  birth— notwithstanding  the  malice 
and     vituperative      energy     with     which      it 


229 


may  be  conducted,  still  the  Union 
sentiments  of  Missouri  will  prevail,  and 
secession,  in  less  than  six  months  from  to-day, 
will  not  be  claimed  by  any  man  who  desires  to 
have  a  respectable  position  among  her  citizens. 
I  vote  no  on  this  amendment. 

Mr.  Zimmerman  gave  a  brief  explanation  of 
his  vote.  He  was  a  Union-loving  man,  and  rep- 
resented a  Union-loving  constituency.  He  want- 
ed all  means  for  an  amicable  adjustment  to  be 
exhausted,  and  felt  sanguine  that,  with  the  pro- 
verbial patriotism  of  the  American  people,  such 
an  adjustment  could  be  effected  satisfactorily  to 
all  parties.  He  was  heartily  in  favor  of  the  ma- 
jority report,  and  approved  of  its  conciliatory 
spirit.  He  had  voted  aye  on  the  amendment  be- 
cause he  held  that  it  was  not  in  conflict  with  the 
spirit  of  the  report.  He  could  not  concur  in  the 
opinion  of  some  gentlemen,  that  the  amendment 
was  an  ultimatum.  If  he  had  thought  so  he 
would  not  have  voted  for  it. 

Mr.  Calhoun  desired  permission  to  change 
his  vote  from  aye  to  no. 

Mr.  Ritchey.  Mr.  President,  as  I  have  occu- 
pied but  little  of  the  time  of  this  Convention  since 
we  organized,  I  desire  at  this  time  to  give  some 
reasons  for  the  vote  that  I  am  now  about  to  give. 
Sir,  on  the  18th  of  last  month,  at  the  ballot  box 
throughout  the  district  which  I  in  part  repre- 
sent here,  at  least  three-fifths  of  the  voters  in  that 
district,  instructed  me  to  vote  against  this  amend- 
ment. The  reason  why  I  say  that  I  was  instruct- 
ed to  vote  against  it  is  this :  I  hold  in  my  hand  a 
circular  containing  a  speech  delivered  by  me  at  a 
mass  meeting,  held  at  our  county  seat  just  two 
weeks  before  the  election,  in  which  speech  I  gave 
my  views  and  the  policy  that  I  Avas  in  favor  of; 
and  at  the  same  meeting  a  series  of  resolutions 
were  adopted,  which  I  indorsed  and  had  printed 
in  this  circular.  Having  sent  these  circulars  to  all 
parts  of  the  district,  and  having  besides  visited 
the  counties  in  my  district,  my  constituents 
knew  my  policy.  And  I  will  ask  the  indulgence 
of  this  House  till  I  can  read  a  paragraph  from 
this  speech.  In  speaking  of  the  duties  of  this 
Convention,  I  stated  as  follows : 

"  Then  what  are  the  duties  of  our  State  Con- 
vention? They  will  be  many;  too  numerous  to 
name  here.  But  one  is,  to  cling  to  the  Union,  so 
long  as  there  is  a  ray  of  hope  that  we  will  get 
our  Constitutional  rights  under  the  Federal 
Government — to  do  what  they  can  to  bring 
about  a  National  Convention  and  a  re- 
conciliation between  the  different  sections. 
Let  Missouri,  with  the  other  border  States,  both 
slave  and  free,  stand  as  a  mediator  between 
the  offended  and  the  offending  States,  and  if  we, 
as  a  double  row  of  States,  reaching  from  the  At- 
lantic to  the  Pacific,  will  stand  firm  to  our  post, 
and  tire  not  in  our  exertions,  we  may  yet  be  the 


humble  instruments,  in  God's  hand,  of  saving 
this  nation  from  ruin." 

And  now  I  will  read  from  the  resolutions.  The 
eighth  resolution  is  as  follows: 

"That  holding  views  we  are  not  prepared  to 
abandon  the  Union,  with  all  its  blessings,  while 
any  hope  of  adjustment  remains.  Until  then  we 
will  maintain  our  place  in  the  Union,  and 
contend  for  and  demand  our  equal  and  constitu- 
tional rights,  and  will  not  be  content  with  less." 

Now,  Mr.  President,  I  am  opposed  to  saying  to 
the  General  Government,  "You  shall  do  this,  or 
you  shall  do  that."  I  am  opposed  to  Missouri 
saying  to  the  border  States,  "If  you  will  do  this 
or  that,  we  will  do  so  too."  There  is  a  point 
where  forbearance  ceases  to  be  a  virtue;  but 
let  Missouri  reserve  to  herself  the  right  to  say 
when  and  where  that  point  is.  I  wish  to 
say,  while  I  am  up,  Mr.  President,  that  the 
people  whom  I  in  part  represent  here,  feel 
that  they  are  citizens  of  these  United  States, 
that  they  are  loyal  to  the  Government  in  which 
they  live,  and  wish  this  Government  to  be  per- 
petuated, and  all  the  difficulties  to  be  adjusted. 

We  know  that  we  have  received  many  blessings 
from  this  Government;  and  we  have  hopes  and 
believe  these  difficulties  can  all  be  settled  through 
and  by  a  National  Convention.  And  while  I  say 
this,  I  wish  to  say  further,  that  we  are  not  sub- 
missionists.  No  sir,  we  are  far  from  it,  and  we 
expect  our  rights  in  amendments  to  the  Constitu- 
tion. Then  I  feel  fully  authorized  by  the  position 
I  taok  before  my  constituents,  to  vote  against  this 
amendment  and  support  all  the  resolutions  re- 
ported by  the  Committee  on  Federal  Relations, 
or  at  least  the  first,  second,  third,  fourth,  and 
fifth.  The  sixth  and  seventh  I  have  some  ob- 
jections to,  though  they  only  have  reference  to 
adjourning  and  electing  a  Committee  whose  duty 
it  will  be  to  call  the  convention  together  at  such 
time  and  place  as  they  may  think  fit.  With  these 
remarks,  sir,  I  vote  no. 

The  vote  thereupon  stood  as  follows : 

Ayes — Bartlett,  Bast,  Brown,  Cayce,  Che- 
nault,  Collier,  Comingo,  Crawford,  Frayser, 
Hatcher,  Hill,  Hough,  Howell,  Hudgins,  Matson, 
Noell,  Redd,  Sawyer,  Sheeley,  Waller,  Watkins, 
Zimmerman,  and  Mr.  President. 

Noes— Allen,  Bass,  Birch,  Bogy,  Breckinridge, 
Broadhead,  Bridge,  Bush,  Calhoun,  Doniphan, 
Donnell,  Douglass,  Drake,  Dunn,  Eitzen,  Flood, 
Foster,  Gamble,  Gantt,  Givens,  Gorin,  Gravelly, 
Hall  of  Buchanan,  Hall  of  Randolph,  Henderson, 
Hendricks,  Hitchcock,  Holmes,  Holt,  How,  Ir- 
win, Isbell,  Jackson,  Jamison,  Johnson,  Kidd, 
Leeper,  Linton,  Long,  Marmaduke,  Marvin, 
Maupin,  McClurg,  McCormack,  McDowell,  Mc- 
Ferran,  Meyer,  Morrow,  Moss,  Norton,  Orr, 
Phillips,  Pomeroy,  Rankin,  Ray,  Ritchey,  Row- 
land, Sayre,  Scott,  Shackelford  of  Howard, 
Shackelford  of  St.  Louis,  Smith  of  Linn,  Smith 


230 


of  St.  Louis,  Tindall,  Turner,  Welch,  Woodson, 
Woolfolk,  Wright,   Vanbuskirk. 

Absent.— Messrs.  Harbin,  Ross,  Stewart,  and 
Wilson. 

SrcK. — Messrs.  Knott  and  Pipkin. 

Amendment  declared  rejected. 

Mr.  Hall  moved  the  previous  question. 

Mr.  Breckinridge  moved  to  adjourn,  as  a 
great  many  members  were  absent.    Carried. 

Convention  thereupon  adjourned. 


SEVENTEENTH   DAY. 

St.  Louis,  March  20th,  1861. 

Met  at  10  o'clock,  a.  m. 

Mr.  President  in  the  chair. 

Prayer  by  the  Chaplain. 

Journal  read  and  approved. 

Mr.  Redd.  I  asked  the  gentleman  who  made 
the  motion  for  the  previous  question  last  evening, 
to  withdraw  it,  in  order  that  I  may  offer  an 
amendment  which  I  think  will  meet  the  views  of 
the  Convention. 

The  Chair.  The  question  will  be,  shall  the 
main  question  be  now  put. 

A  division  was  called  for. 

Mr.  Smith.  I  do  not  understand,  Mr.  Presi- 
dent, what  effect  the  previous  question  will  have. 

The  Chair.  It  will  bring  the  third  resolution 
to  an  immediate  vote. 

Mr.  Redd.  I  call  for  the  ayes  and  noes  on  the 
question. 

The  Chair.  It  is  too  late,  as  the  question  has 
been  put,  and  the  question  called  for. 

The  previous  question  was  sustained;  ayes  51, 
noes  22. 

The  ayes  and  noes  were  then  called  on  the 
adoption  of  the  resolution. 

explanation  or  votes. 

Mr.  Breckinridge.  I  wish  to  say  a  few 
words  which  perhaps  may  not  be  strictly  in  ex- 
planation of  my  vote. 

The  Chair.  Leave  will  be  granted  if  no  ob- 
jection is  made. 

Mr.  Breckinridge.  Last  evening  when  the 
proposition  was  made  to  order  the  previous 
question,  it  may  be  remembered  that  I  op- 
posed the  motion— I  had  it  in  my  mind  then,  to 
ask  the  indulgence  of  the  Convention,  to  permit 
me  to  make  a  few  remarks,  touching  not  only  tbis 
particular  resolution  but  the  whole  scope  of  the 
resolutions  before  us.  I  find,  however,  there  is 
a  desire  to  vote  on  the  proposition,  and  I  don't 
desire  to  delay  the  action  of  the  Convention  by 
speaking  at  any  length ;  but  I  wish  to  say  a  word 
or  two  in  reference  to  this  proposition.  In  the 
resolutions  which   I   had   the   honor    to    sub- 


mit some  days  ago  to  the  Convention,  and 
which  under  the  rules  were  referred  to  the  Com- 
mittee on  Federal  Relations,  I  attempted  to  cover 
the  ground  that  this  Convention  should,  in  my 
judgment,  take  in  its  utterances  in  regard  to  the 
difficulties  now  pending  throughout  the  country 
— difficulties  which  should  be  in  some  way  ad- 
justed for  the  purpose  of  restoring  harmony 
and  peace.  In  those  resolutions,  Mr.  President, 
I  scrupulously  avoided — and  for  a  purpose  which 
I  thought  wise — indicating  as  my  own  preference, 
or  calling  upon  the  Convention  to  indicate  as  its 
preference,  the  adoption  of  any  particular  proposi- 
tion now  pending  before  the  country.  I  did  this 
mainly  for  these  reasons :  First,  that  I  know 
throughout  this  wide  country  there  is  a 
great  difference  of  opinion  in  regard  to 
these  propositions,  and  considering  these  va- 
rieties of  opinion  held  by  good  and  patriotic 
men,  I  think  it  will  be  a  matter  of  great  difficul- 
ty to  unite  the  country  upon  any  particular 
proposition  as  propounded  by  any  particular  per- 
son; and  secondly,  for  the  reason  that  I  have 
learned  by  the  course  of  events  during  the  last 
few  months,  to  dread  as  I  do  the  very  pestilence, 
secession  itself,  the  schemes  of  those  who,  under 
all  possible  disguises,  seek  to  aggravate  existing 
troubles ;  and  I  have  discovered  also  that  whenever 
a  proposition  is  put  to  the  Southern  people,  if 
that  proposition  in  letter,  substance  and  form  is 
not  immediately  granted;  if  there  is  a  refusal  to 
grant  it  in  the  precise  form  in  which  some  per- 
son thinks  it  ought  to  be  granted,  such  a  refusal 
is  immediately  made  the  subject  of  a  new  crusade 
in  behalf  of  the  outrages  on  Southern  rights,  by 
those  who  seek  to  prevent  all  compromise. — 
I  have  noticed  that  and  I  dread  it,  and  I 
desire  by  my  action  and  by  the  action  of  this 
Convention,  and  by  the  action  of  the  State  of 
Missouri,  which  has  now  so  nobly  proclaimed 
herself  loyal  to  the  Union,  the  Constitution  and 
the  laws  to  the  very  core  of  her  great  heart,  to 
avoid  every  thing  which  can  afford  new  pretext 
for  complaint. 

Mr.  Redd.  I  call  the  gentleman  to  order. 

The  Chair.   State  your  point  of  order. 

Mr.  Redd.  I  understand  he  arose  to  explain  his 
vote. 

The  Chair.  The  gentleman  asked  leave  to 
make  a  speech,  for  the  reason  that  he  did  not  in- 
tend to  confine  himself  strictly  to  his  vote.  I  put 
the  question  and  the  House  granted  him  leave. 

Mr.  Redd.  I  did  not  so  understand  it.  If  de- 
bate is  to  be  had  I  desire  to  be  in  a  position  where 
it  can  be  answered. 

The  Chair.  When  the  gentleman's  name  is 
called,  he  can  ask  leave  likewise. 

Mr.  Breckinridge.  I  trust,  sir,  if  anything 
falls  from  my  lips  which  the  gentleman  from  Ma- 
rion desires  to  answer,  he  will  have  full  liberty  to 
make  a  speech  in  reply.  But  I  desire  to  speak 


231 


only  with  reference  to  the  reasons  why  I  thought  it 
most  desirable  to  avoid  stating  in  any  proposition 
the  preference  of  this  Convention  for  any  particu- 
lar form  of  adjustment.  I  have  already  said  I 
took  this  ground,  first,  that  it  was  almost  im- 
possible now  to  hope  that  the  great  body  of  the 
people  in  any  section  could  be  brought  to  adopt 
with  unanimity  any  one  proposition,  and  sec- 
ond, that  the  indorsement  of  any  particular  prop- 
osition, or  modification  of  any  particular  propo- 
sition, would,  if  it  should  afterwards  be  modified 
or  changed  in  any  respect,  afford  a  pretext 
to  those  who  seek  to  produce  trouble  to 
say  that  the  exact  thing  which  we  desired 
has  not  been  granted,  and  we  will  not  rest  sat- 
isfied until  exactly  what  we  wish  is  granted. 
My  idea,  sir,  in  regard  to  this  matter,  which  I 
attempted  to  present  in  the  resolutions  I  submit- 
ted, was  this :  that  touching  this  slavery  ques- 
tion as  applied  to  the  Territories — which  is  really 
the  only  seriously  disputed  question  pending, 
and  which,  when  settled,  will  really  settle 
the  whole  controversy — that  the  people  should 
seek  an  adjustment  of  the  present  difficulties  upon 
some  principle,  which  has  as  a  basis  and 
which  recognizes,  simply  this :  That  the  people  of 
the  North  should  abandon  any  purpose  to  use 
the  power  of  the  General  Government,  as  it  might 
be  committed  to  their  hands,  to  repress  or  extin- 
guish slavery:  and  that  answering  to  this  relin- 
quishment on  the  part  of  the  people  of  the  North, 
the  people  of  the  South  should  avow  their 
purpose  solemnly  and  fairly  to  abandon  every 
effort  to  use  the  power  of  the  General  Government, 
as  it  might  be  committed  to  them,  to  perpetuate 
or  extend  slavery.  I  believe  this  is  the  true  basis, 
and  that  it  covers  the  entire  case;  and  I  believe 
that  that  principle,  whenever  the  Northern  people 
are  willing  to  accept  it — as  I  believe  they  now  are — 
that  that  principle  applied  to  public  affairs  will 
settle  every  difficulty. 

Now,  sir,  with  all  deference  to  the  Commit- 
tee on  Federal  Relations,  every  member  of 
which  I  know,  and  every  member  of 
which  I  respect— with  all  due  deference  to 
their  superior  age,  wisdom  and  experience,  I 
think  it  would  have  been  better  if  they  had 
adopted  this  plan  rather  than  the  one  which 
they  have  adopted.  At  the  same  time  I  recognize 
this  fact,  and  with  pleasure,  that  in  framing  this 
particular  resolution,  they  have,  with  most  scru- 
pulous care,  as  I  think  appears  from  the  framing 
of  the  resolution,  carefully  excluded  from  the 
the  resolution,  everything  which  in  any  manner 
might  be  construed  as  an  ultimatum.  In  that, 
sir,  I  approve  and  applaud  the  action  of  the  Com- 
mittee. It  is  intended  by  them,  if  the  Conven- 
tion shall  adopt  it,  as  I  do  not  doubt  it  will,  that 
it  shall  go  simply,  as  an  announcement  to  the 
people  of  all  sections  of  the  country,  that  the 
State  of  Missouri  desires    this   whole  difficulty 


amicably  and  justly  settled;  and  while  it  is 
not  wedded  to  any  particular  proposition, 
yet,  it  is  the  belief  of  those  who  repre- 
sent the  people  here,  that  this  particular  proposi- 
tion, if  adopted,  will  be  successful  in  producing 
the  result  so  much  desired.  So  far,  I  approve  it; 
for  I  say  here,  that  I  may  be  distinctly  understood, 
that  so  far  as  the  proposition  of  the  Honorable 
Senator  from  Kentucky  is  concerned,  I  have  no 
objection  to  it,  and  I  can  add  farther,  that  either 
one  of  the  four  or  five  other  propositions 
pending  before  the  last  Congress,  would,  if 
adopted,  in  my  judgment,  give  peace  to  the  coun- 
try; the  Crittenden  proposition— the  Douglas 
proposition— the  Corwin- Adams  proposition,  or 
the  Peace  Conference  proposition — any  one 
of  them,  in  my  judgment,  fairly  applied  and 
properly  adopted,  will  settle  this  whole  controver- 
sy. But,  I  am  not  wedded  to  any  particular  pro- 
position. And,  sir,  now  I  come  to  the  point  upon 
which  I  wish  particularly  to  say  a  word.  It  will 
be  remembered— and  it  is  known  throughout  the 
country— that  this  grand  old  Senator  from  Ken- 
tucky, standing  up  as  a  statesman  among  politi- 
cians, as  a  real  patriot  among  pigmies,  did  not 
include  in  his  original  proposition  that  clause 
which  applies  to  the  future  acquisition  of  territo- 
ry. He  was  too  wise  a  man  for  that.  I  have  no 
doubt,  while  I  do  not  pretend  to  understand  the 
secret  workings  of  this  thing,  that  he  put  this 
clause  in,  as  an  addition  to  his  original 
proposition,  only  at  the  importunate  request 
of  some  Southern  friends;  and  while  I  have 
no  desire  or  right  to  speak  of  the  motives  of 
men,  except  in  so  far  as  they  are  made  manifest 
through  their  acts— yet  I  say  now,  it  is  my 
conviction  that,  whatever  may  have  been  the  mo- 
tives of  those  who  have  sought  to  make  this 
provision  concerning  future  territorial  acquisi- 
tions he  sine  qua  non  of  any  settlement, 
if  they  persist  in  it  they  are  enemies  to 
Missouri,  to  the  Union,  and  to  the  public  peace ; 
and  deserve,  as  I  believe  they  will  be,  to  be 
crushed  out  and  put  down.  Why,  sir,  our  terri- 
tory is  large  enough  already — so  large  that  we 
cannot  manage  it — so  large  that  we  cannot  peo- 
ple it;  and  the  territory  already  devoted  to 
slavery  is  so  large  that  for  perhaps  one  hundred 
years,  at  the  same  rate  of  progress  we  have  been 
making,  we  will  not  have  more  than  enough 
slaves  to  till  and  cultivate  it.  But,  with  all 
these  facts  staring  us  in  the  face,  there  are  gentle- 
men who  seek  to  make  it  an  absolute  condition 
of  the  settlement  of  this  question :  that  we  shall 
make  no  agreement  without  fixing  the  po'icy  of 
the  country  as  to  territory  which  we  have  not  yet 
acquired.  I  trust,  at  least  dui-ing  my  life,  that  we 
shall  have  no  more  territory.  If  we  had  acquired 
none  during  the  last  twenty  or  thirty  years,  we 
should  have  had  none  of  these  troubles;  and  the 
sooner  the  public  mind  understands  and  rests 


232 


upon  the  conviction  that  we  already  hare  suffi- 
ciently extended  the  area  of  freedom,  the  better 
it  will  be  for  the  peace  of  the  country.  I  be. 
lieve  it  to  be  bad  statesmanship  to  attempt  to 
legislate  finally  now,  concerning  territories  we 
do  not  own  and  may  never  acquire.  While 
I,  of  course,  do  not  pretend  to  apply  what 
I  have  said  in  reference  to  the  motive  which 
induces  the  advocacy  of  this  amendment  to 
the  Committee  on  Federal  Relations,  any  more 
than  to  the  noble  old  Senator  from  Kentucky, 
whom  I  love  and  honor  as  much  as  man  can,  I 
still  say  that  those  who  adhere  to  the  proposition 
that  a  settlement  of  the  question  must  be  to  in- 
clude the  status  of  territory  hereafter  to  be  ac- 
quired, are  doing  what  they  can  to  destroy 
the  country  and  its  peace.  That  is  all  I  wish 
to  say  now  on  that  subject.  But  in  order 
that  I  may  not  be  misunderstood,  I  say  further, 
that  I  expect  to  vote  for  the  resolution.  I  desire 
to  do  all  I  can  to  make  the  Convention,  as  nearly 
as  possible,  a  unit  on  this  as  on  all  questions. — 
I  am  willing  to  waive  my  judgment  whenever  I  can 
do  so  without  violating  my  self-respect  or  sense 
of  duty.  But  I  say,  if  it  was  here  intended  to  say 
that  the  Crittenden  proposition,  including  its  ap- 
plication to  future  acquisitions,  was  to  be  a  test 
whether  Missouri  would  remain  true  to  the  Union, 
I  would  scorn  it,  sir, — I  would  do  my  utmost  to 
defeat  it.  But  as  I  understand  it  as  a  recommen- 
dation of  the  people  of  Missouri  that,  in  their 
judgment,  this  proposition,  if  adopted,  would  be 
final,  the  simple  announcement  to  the  country 
that  if  the  people  of  Missouri  are  willing,  if  the 
country  is  willing,  to  accept  it  as  a  basis  of  ad- 
justment, with  that  understanding  and  the  expla- 
nation of  my  views  I  have  already  given,  I  shall 
vote  for  the  resolution. 

Mr.  Bridge.  I  do  not  look  upon  this  as  an 
ultimatum.  I  am  not  against  compromise — 
either  the  Douglas,  Crittenden,  or  the  various 
other  propositions,  meet  my  approbation.  The 
only  thing  in  the  Crittenden  proposition  which  I 
cannot  indorse  is  that  in  regard  to  acquiring  ter- 
ritory. If  that  was  stricken  out,  I  should  have 
no  objection  to  it.  With  this  statement,  I  desire 
to  say  that  I  shall  vote  for  the  resolution. 

Mr.  Hitchcock.  Mr.  President,  I  desire  to  say 
a  feAv  words  in  explanation  of  my  vote  upon  the 
question  now  before  the  Convention.  I  am  the 
more  impelled  to  do  so  in  view  of  the  construction 
which  I  learn  has  been  placed  by  some  gentlemen 
upon  some  remarks  which  I  made  a  few  days 
since  before  this  body,  with  reference  to  the  ma- 
jority report  of  the  Committee  on  Federal  Rela- 
tions and  the  resolutions  accompanying  the  same. 

I  beg  leave,  sir,  to  call  the  attention  of  the  Con- 
vention to  the  words  which  I  did  in  fact  use  on 
that  occasion.  I  then  spoke  of  the  Report  as  a 
whole,  and  stated  that,  regarding  it  as  a  "Union 
Report,"  presenting  no  ultimatum  and  containing 


no  threat,  I  was  in  favor  of  it  as  a  whole :  but 
that  there  were  some  passages  in  the  Report,  and 
some  of  the  resolutions,  to  which  I  objected;  and 
that  I  should  express  my  sentiment  by  my  vote. 

Permit  me,  sir,  very  briefly  to  state  the  reasons 
for  which  I  am  unable  to  vote  for  this  resolution. 
I  have  very  carefully  examined  it,  upon  its  own 
merits,  and  without  reference  to  any  party  views. 
I  find  that  by  this  resolution  I  am  called  upon  to 
express  the  belief  that  the  adoption  of  what  is 
known  as  the  "  Crittenden  Compromise/'  with 
the  extension  of  the  same  to  the  territory  here- 
after to  be  acquired  by  treaty  or  otherwise,  would 
successfully  remove  the  causes  of  difference  for- 
ever from  the  arena  of  national  politics.  Upon 
the  most  careful  consideration,  and  while  I  am 
most  anxious  that  the  action  of  this  Convention 
should  as  far  as  possible  be  unanimous,  I  am  un- 
able to  express  that  belief. 

I  object  in  the  first  place  to  the  clause  relating 
to  the  Territory  hereafter  to  be  acquired.  Briefly, 
I  look  upon  it  as  a  direct  encouragement  to  "fili- 
bustering." It  can  have  no  other  effect  than  to 
stimulate  the  efforts  of  those  who  are  already  dis- 
posed by  unlawful  and  unfriendly  means  to  seek 
the  acquisition  of  territory  from  neighboring 
powers,  in  the  interest  of  the  extension  of  slavery. 

But  even  without  that  clause,  I  am  unable  to 
see  that  this  proposition — I  refer  to  that  part  of  it 
which  relates  to  the  slavery  question  in  the  terri- 
tories— is  a  wise  or  practicable  basis  of  adjust- 
ment. I  do  not  consider  it,  sir,  as  being  in  any 
proper  sense  a  compromise.  WThat  are  the  facts? 
We  know  that  many  of  the  people  of  this  country 
do  not  desire  the  extension  of  slavery.  They  hold 
the  opinion,  upon  honest  conviction,  that  it  is  not 
for  the  future  good  of  the  territories  that  the  insti- 
tution of  slavery  should  be  established  there. 
And  also  believing  that  the  entire  control,  and 
therefore  the  entire  responsibility,  in  respect  to 
the  affairs  and  the  institutions  of  the  territories, 
while  they  remain  in  the  territorial  condition,  rests 
under  the  Constitution  with  the  National  Legis- 
lature, they  consider  that  whenever  it  is  necessary 
to  exercise  the  power  in  question,  it  should 
and  rightfully  may  be  exercised  in  accordance 
with  that  opinion.  That  is  their  real  and  fixed 
conviction.  On  the  other  hand,  another  large 
portion  of  the  people  believe, — and  I  doubt  not 
with  equally  honest  conviction—  that  that  institu- 
tion ought  to  be  established  in  the  territories. 
Some  of  them  believe  that  the  Constitution  gives 
the  slaveholder  the  right  to  carry  his  slaves  into 
the  territories  and  hold  them  there :  others,  with- 
out reference  to  the  constitutional  question,  con- 
sider that  this  right  should  be  acknowledged  as  a 
matter  of  fair  and  equitable  division. 

Now,  without  reference  to  the  correctness  or 
otherwise  of  either  of  these  views,  the  point  I 
make  is  that  a  proposition  which  in  effect  requires 
either  the  one  party  or  the  other  to  surrender  their 


233 


convictions, — to  act  in  direct  opposition  to  their 
principles — is  not  a  compromise.  The  persons 
respectively  holding  these  opposite  views,  are,  so 
to  speak,  at  a  dead-lock.  Is  it  a  compromise  to 
say  to  either — you  must  surrender  your  convic- 
tions? 

I  am  very  far  from  opposing  a  compromise.  I  de- 
sire only  that  it  be  really  a  compromise— one 
which  shall  require  from  neither  party  a  sacrifice 
of  principle,  and  which  by  removing  the  subject 
matter  from  the  arena  of  controversy  shall  bring 
about  an  adjustment  honorable  to  both.  Such  an 
adjustment,  sir,  in  my  opinion,  has  already  been 
proposed.  The  proposition  to  enable  the  inhab- 
itants of  New  Mexico — the  only  territory  in  dis- 
pute, and  in  which  slavery  is  now  in  fact  recog- 
nized by  law— to  form  a  State  Constitution,  with 
or  without  slavery,  as  to  them  shall  seem  fit,  ap- 
pears to  me  to  be  a  practical  compromise  such  as 
I  have  indicated.  I  regret,  sir,  if  any  plan  was 
to  be  indicated  by  this  Convention,  that  it  was 
not  one  of  that  description,  or  on  some  such  basis. 
But,  as  the  question  now  comes  up,  I  find  myself 
called  upon  to  express  a  direct  opinion  as  to  the 
merits  of  this  particular  plan,  and  my  opinion  is 
against  it. 

I  might  give  other  reasons  why  it  does  not  seem 
to  me  desirable  or  expedient  for  the  Convention 
to  adopt  this  resolution,  some  of  which  have  been 
indicated  in  the  remarks  of  my  friend  and  col- 
league, (Mr.  Breckinridge;)  but  having  frankly 
stated  my  obj  ection  to  the  plan  in  question,  on  its 
merits,  I  will  not  further  trespass  on  the  indul- 
gence of  the  Convention.    I  vote  no. 

Mr.  Meyer.  Understanding  that  the  Critten- 
den proposition,  as  used  in  this  resolution,  is  no 
ultimatum,  and  not  so  intended  by  the  Committee 
on  Federal  Relations,  I  shall  vote  for  the  resolu- 
tion. 

Mr.  Broadhead.  Mr.  President,  I  will,  by 
leave  of  the  Convention,  briefly  give  the  reasons 
why  I  shall  vote  against  this  resolution.  The 
committee  has  recommended  the  call  of  a  Nation- 
al Convention,  to  make  such  adjustment  of  ex- 
isting difficulties  as  may  be  found  necessary  for 
the  peace  of  the  country  and  the  preservation  of 
the  Union.  I  deem  it  therefore  unwise  to  tie  the 
hands  of  our  delegates  to  that  Convention,  by 
suggesting  any  proposition  of  adjustment,  leav- 
ing them  free  to  act  as  surrounding  circumstances 
may  dictate.  This  is  my  first  objection;  but  if 
we  are  to  make  a  suggestion,  and  propose  a  plan 
of  adjustment,  then  I  think  we  ought  to  suggest 
something  better  than  the  Crittenden  proposi- 
tion—I mean  that  portion  of  his  plan  which  re- 
fers to  the  Territories— for  to  the  other  portions 
of  it  I  make  no  objection.  I  think  the  Douglas 
proposition  better— the  Corwin-Adams  proposi- 
tion better,  and  the  Franklin  substitute  far  better. 
The  last  named  proposition,  I  see  by  the  dispatch- 
es this  morning,  has  been  recommended  by  the 


Committee  on  Federal  Relations  of  the  Virginia 
Convention,  and  it  is  altogether  likely  that  if  any- 
thing is  done  that  this  will  be  the  proposition 
finally  adopted.  I  think  the  Crittenden  proposi- 
tion the  least  likely  of  all  to  be  adopted.  Were  I 
a  member  of  the  proposed  National  Convention, 
I  am  not  prepared  to  say  what  I  would  do,  but  I 
would  support  almost  any  proposition  which 
might  be  deemed  necessary  to  bring  peace  to  the 
country  and  preserve  the  integrity  of  the  Union. 
But  I  deem  it  the  best  policy,  and  Avhen  I  say  pol- 
icy I  mean  the  best  policy  in  reference  to  the  set- 
tlement of  these  questions  of  difference,  to  leave 
our  delegates  untrammelled  as  to  their  future  ac- 
tion. 

The  resolution  was  adopted.    Ayes  88,  nays  4. 

Mr.  Gamble.  The  next  resolution  that 
comes  up,  I  have  redrawn,  with  the  consent  of 
the  committee,  using,  however,  the  language  of 
the  resolution  chiefly  as  reported  by  the  commit- 
tee, and  only  making  such  alterations  as  seem  to 
meet  the  views  of  the  various  gentlemen  in 
the  Convention,  and  especially  the  gentlemen 
who  proposed  the  original  resolution  in  the  com- 
mittee. In  offering  the  resolution,  I  will  also  call 
the  previous  question. 

The  resolution  was  then  read  by  the  Secretary, 
as  follows : 

Resolved,  That  the  people  of  Missouri  believe 
that  the  peace  and  quiet  of  the  country  will  be 
promoted  by  a  Convention  to  pass  amendments 
to  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States,  and  this 
Convention,  therefore,  urges  the  Legislature  of 
this  State,  and  of  other  States,  to  take  proper 
steps  for  calling  such  Convention  in  pursuance  of 
the  fifth  article  of  the  Constitution,  and  to  provide 
by  law  for  the  election  by  the  people  of  such 
number  of  delegates  as  are  to  be  sent  to  such 
Convention. 

The  motion  for  the  previous  question  was  sus- 
tained. 

Mr.  Redd.  I  do  not  understand  parliamentary 
rules,  and  I  do  not  understand  what  the  main 
question  is. 

The  Chair.  It  is  on  the  adoption  of  the  sub- 
stitute; whether  that  shall  be  put  in  place  of  the 
original. 

Mr.  Doniphan.  Does  the  adoption  of  the  sub- 
stitute make  it  equivalent  to  the  adoption  of  the 
whole  thing  ? 

The  Chair.    I  think  so,  sir. 

The  amendment  was  then  concurred  to. 

Mr.  Hatcher.  Is  it  in  order  to  move  an 
amendment? 

Mr.  Welch.  It  strikes  me  that,  if  an  amend- 
ment is  agreed  to,  it  is  not  then  subject  to  amend- 
ment. That,  I  think,  is  the  course  of  the  Legisla- 
ture. 

Mr.  Hudgins.  I  understand  that  the  original 
resolution  would  have  been  subject  to  an  amend- 


234 


ment,  and  that  this  takes  the  place  of  it,  and  is 
subject  to  amendment. 

Mr.  Hall,  of  Buchanan.  The  previous  ques- 
tion is  still  in  operation,  as  I  understand  it,  and, 
as  a  matter  of  course,  no  amendment  can  be  in 
order. 

Mr.  Redd.  I  understand  the  previous  question 
was  called  as  to  whether  this  should  be  substitu- 
ted. I  see  gentlemen  are  desirous  of  cutting:  off 
all  amendments  and  excluding  debate.  We  do 
not  want  any  debate  on  our  side,  but  we  would 
like  the  privilege  of  offering  such  amendments  as 
meet  our  views. 

The  Chair.  My  impression  is,  the  previous 
question  having  been  sustained,  it  will  refer  to 
each  proposition  in  its  regular  order,  and  con- 
tinue up  to  the  adoption  of  the  original  resolu- 
tion. 

Mr.  Hough.  Does  this_cut  off  all  debate  from 
the  resolution  ? 

The  Chair.  Yes,  sir. 

Mr.  Hough.  I  am  somewhat  anxious  to  be 
heard  on  the  fourth  resolution,but  it  would  not  be 
in  order  now,  I  suppose,  to  offer  any  remarks 
upon  the  subject. 

The  Chair.  The  previous  question  cuts  off  all 
debate  and  amendments  until  the  whole  question 
is  disposed  of. 

The  roll  was  then  called. 

EXPLANATIONS   OP  VOTES. 

Mr.  Redd.  I  am  opposed  to  this  resolution. 
It  provides  for  a  National  Convention;  that  Con- 
vention can  be  called  only  on  the  application  of 
two-thirds  of  the  States.  Congress  considers  the 
seceded  States  as  yet  in  the  Union.  Upon  that 
basis  it  would  require  the  action  of  twenty-three 
States  before  Congress  could  call  such  a  conven- 
tion. Many  of  the  Legislatures  of  the  free  States 
are  committed  on  the  record  against  all  com- 
promise or  concession.  They  would  not,  there- 
fore, unite  in  the  call;  and  if  Congress  should 
change  the  basis  and  admit  that  the  seceded  States 
are  out  of  the  Union,  then  it  would  require  but 
eighteen  States  to  unite  in  the  call,  and  a  Nation- 
al Convention  could  be  had;  but  in  that  case 
Virginia  and  Maryland,  and  probably  North  Car- 
olina, would  refuse  to  go  into  such  a  Convention, 
and  secede  in  that  event, which  I  consider  certain, 
there  would  be  but  five  slave  States  to  nineteen 
free  States.  The  anti-slavery  party,  for  the  first 
time  in  its  history,  would  have  the  power,  under 
the  Constitution,  not  only  to  propose  an  amend- 
ment that  would  abolish  slavery  in  the  States, 
but  the  power  under  the  Constitution  to  ratify  it. 
This  proposition,  a  National  Convention,  is  the 
only  proposition  that  party  has  yet  deigned  to 
make,  while  it  has  persistently  rejected  all  propo- 
sitions made  by  the  Slave  States.  I  consider  this 
proposition,  comma:  from  the  Republican  party 
under  present  circumstances,  will  prove  a  slaugh- 
ter pen  for  slave  institutions.    I  therefore  vote  no. 


Mr.  Satre.  It  is  understood,  sir,  that  another 
proposition  is  to  be  presented,  by  which  we  shall 
call  for  a  conference,  or  consultation,  or  conven- 
tion, of  the  slave  States  still  remaining  in  the 
Union.  It  is  understood,  I  believe,  by  all  of  us, 
that  this  convention  is  to  take  place  and  is  to  sit 
previous  and  preliminary  to  ths  General  Conven- 
tion of  the  whole  States.  I  believe  that  we  would 
have  the  courage,  if  necessary,  in  the  same  way 
as  wre  find  we  possess  it  now,  to  take  steps  for  re- 
sisting all  use  of  illegal  power  or  the  illegal  use 
of  power.  If  we  shall  be  brought  into  this 
slaughter  pen  I  believe  we  shall  have  the  strength 
and  courage  to  initiate  all  proper  steps  for  resis- 
tance. If  there  is  to  be  a  settlement,  sir,  it  is  to 
be  done  only,  I  think,  by  some  united  action  of 
the  people  of  all  the  States.  Our  Constitution  has 
provided  two  modes  for  entering  upon  that  ac- 
tion, and  this  is  one  of  them.  It  is  proper,  it 
seems  to  me,  that  the  resolution  should  be 
adopted,  and  particularly  as  we  contemplate,  and 
as  it  is  understood  by  all  of  us,  that  there  is  an- 
other resolution,  which,  although  not  embraced 
in  this  series,  yet  is  printed — that  there  is  an- 
other resolution  that  will  give  us  consultation 
with  our  sisters  that  remain  true  to  the  Union. 
I  therefore  vote  aye. 

Mr.  Howell.  I  desire  to  make  a  brief  expla- 
nation. I  am  a  Union  man,  sir.  I  came  here  to 
contribute  all  within  my  power  to  the  preserva- 
tion of  the  Union  upon  terms  of  equality  to  the 
States  and  to  the  people  of  the  respective  States. 
I  believe  that  in  order  to  the  preservation  of  this 
Union  an  adjustment  is  absolutely  necessary. 
This  Union  cannot  be  preserved  without  an  ad- 
justment of  the  questions  between  the  respective 
parties  of  the  Confederacy.  There  are  but  three 
ways  that  I  am  apprised  of,  of  bringing  about  an 
adjustment.  One  of  these  means  is  by  a  National 
Convention  as  prescribed  by  the  Constitution; 
the  other  is  by  amendments  proposed  by  the 
Congress  of  the  United  States  to  the  States, 
which  will  become  a  part  of  the  Constitution 
when  ratified  by  three- fourths  of  the  States;  and 
the  other  is  by  a  convention  of  the  remaining 
slave  States,  usually  called  border  States,  in  con- 
junction with  the  border  free  States.  This,  look- 
ing to  any  final  action,  would  be  a  revolutionary 
measure,  and  outside  of  the  Constitution.  It 
would  be  tantamount,  sir,  to  throwing  off  a  por- 
tion of  the  North,  and  leaving  out  a  portion  of 
the  South.  Now,  sir,  I  am  in  favor  of  that  pro- 
ject, not  as  a  revolutionary  project,  but  as  an 
auxiliary  to  the  proposition  contained  in  the  res- 
olution that  we  have  just  been  called  to  vote  up- 
on. I  am  in  favor  of  a  Border  State  Conven- 
tion to  call  the  attention  of  the  Northern  people 
to  the  great  necessity  of  action  in  adopting 
amendments  to  the  Constitution  of  the  United 
States,  in  order  to  preserve  the  Union,  and  I  can 
see  no  inconsistency  whatever  in  these  two  pro- 


235 


positions  being  adopted  by  this  Convention  and 
placed  before  the  country.  Now,  sir,  the  project 
contained  in  the  resolution,  is  the  only  one  I 
know  of  by  which  we  can  appeal  to  the  great 
Northern  heart.  I  am  for  making  that  appeal 
before  surrendering  the  Union  with  all  its  bless- 
ings. I  am  for  giving  that  million  and  a  quarter 
of  lion-hearted  Democrats,  Whigs  and  Ameri- 
cans, one  more  opportunity  of  righting  them- 
selves before  the  country  and  in  the  face  of  the 
civilized  world.  I  believe,  sir,  that  when  that  ap- 
peal is  made — and  a  border  State  Convention  will 
be  the  proper  means  of  presenting  that  appeal- 
that  the  response  will  come  back  echoing  over 
hills  and  valleys  to  the  remotest  portion  of 
our  possession,  giving  us  all  we  can  desire. 
These  are  the  manifestations  I  see  around 
me  at  this  period-  This,  sir,  is  the  hand- 
writing upon  the  wall,  and  before  I  am  dis- 
posed to  take  final  action  upon  this  thing, 
as  I  remarked  before,  I  am  disposed  to  give 
the  North  and  the  South,  as  well  as  the  centre  of 
the  country  and  every  portion  of  the  country  an 
opportunity  to  be  heard  at  the  ballot  box.  I 
want  to  make  that  appeal  to  the  people  of  the 
North,  sir.  If  we  expect  the  salvation  of  this 
Union  it  will  proceed  from  the  people — we  have 
nothing  to  expect  from  the  politicians  in  power 
now.  The  present  politicians  are  inefficient  for 
any  good,  and  therefore  I  am  for  going  behind 
them,  and  that,  too,  in  conformity  with  law  and 
under  the  forms  of  the  Constitution,  to  the  great 
source  of  all  power,  the  people  themselves. 

The  vote  was  then  announced,  and  the  resolu- 
tion was  adopted — ayes  85,  noes  9. 

The  following  are  the  gentlemen  who  voted  in 
the  negative : 

Messrs.  Brown,  Chenault,  Doniphan,  Hatcher, 
Hough,  Hill,  Hudgins,  Redd  and  Watkins. 

Mr.  Donne ll  then  offered  the  following  as  an 
amendment  to  the  fifth  resolution: 

"In  view  of  the  existing  state  of  affairs,  in  order 
to  avoid  and  more  effectually  prevent  a  conflict 
with  the  seceding  States,  which  would  forever 
close  the  door  to  compromise,  we  believe  it  to  be 
the  duty  of  the  Executive  to  withdraw  all  Gov- 
ernment troops  from  their  borders,  and  abstain 
from  the  collection  of  the  revenue,  thereby  de- 
priving them  of  any  plea  for  bringing  on  a  hostile 
engagement  with  a  view  of  engaging  the  sym- 
pathy and  co-operation  of  the  remaining  slave 
States." 

Mr.  Donnell.  In  offering  this  I  do  not  do  so 
because  I  object  to  the  original  proposition.  I 
most  cordially  indorse  the  original  resolution,  and 
I  believe  this  to  be  in  perfect  harmony  and  con- 
sistent with  it.  I  believe  it  to  be  a  peace  offering. 
I  am  satisfied  that  the  most  important  thing  for 
us  to  demand  now  is  time.  Time  will  answer  for 
us  when  everything  else  fails.  It  must  be 
conceded    by  all  that  the  few  troops   remain- 


ing in  the  seceded  States  are  perfectly  useless 
for  good.  They  can  accomplish  nothing  for  the 
Confederated  Government.  Connected  with  the 
position  taken  by  President  Lincoln,  that  he  will 
not  only  possess,  but  that  he  will  hold  the  forts, 
it  must  be  apparent  that  to  do  this  it  will  be 
necessary  to  add  an  additional  force,  which  would 
bring  on  a  conflict  that  would  result  in  great  and 
serious  injury.  But  by  withdrawing  the  troops 
this  conflict  misftt  be  averted.  The  sympathies 
of  the  Border  States  of  the  South  are  such  that 
they  are  not  prepared,  whether  right  or  wrong,  to 
consent  that  the  General  Government  shall,  under 
existing  circumstances,  resort  to  force  in  any 
manner  whatever.  Therefore,  I  submit  this  reso- 
lution, believing  that,  if  sustained,  a  conflict  may 
be  avoided. 

Mr.  Hough.  Yesterday,  sir,  I  offered  an 
amendment  on  this  very  subject.  That  amend- 
ment was  laid  on  the  table  in  order  to  be  printed. 
I  wish  to  inquire  whether  that  amendment  does 
not  have  precedence  to  the  one  offered  this 
morning.  It  is  on  the  same  subject,  although 
not  in  the  same  language. 

Mr.  Donnell.  I  hope  the  gentleman  will 
accept  this  as  a  substitute. 

Mr.  Hough.  To  save  all  difficulty,  I  am  wil- 
ling to  accept  the  amendment  of  the  gentleman 
as  a  substitute  for  the  proposition  I  presented. 

Mr.  Donnell.  I  now  offer  it  as  an  amend- 
ment to  the  fifth  resolution. 

Mr.  Hall  of  Buchanan.  I  would  like  to  offer 
a  substitute  for  this  amendment: 

"That  this  Convention  is  not  sufficiently  inform- 
ed as  to  the  facts  concerning  the  forts  of  the  United 
States  in  the  limits  of  the  seceded  States  as  to  be 
able  to  give  an  opinion  in  reference  to  the  best 
course  of  the  Federal  Government  touching  them; 
but  this  Convention  earnestly  hope  that  such  ac- 
tion will  be  taken  by  the  authority  of  the  United 
States  as  to  avoid  all  hostile  action  between  the 
seceded  States  and  the  General  Government." 

Now,  I  do  not  conceive  that  we  are  sufficiently 
acquainted  with  all  the  facts  touching  the  collec- 
tion of  the  revenue  and  the  forts,  as  to  well  enable 
us  to  give  an  opinion  as  to  the  course  we  should 
pursue  in  reference  to  these  forts.  Let  us  con- 
ceive that  we  have  two  thousand  troops  in  the 
State  of  Texas.  These  troops  are  there  to  protect 
the  people  from  the  Comanche  and  other  Indians. 
Now,  I  am  not  prepared  to  say  that  it  would  be 
wise  or  just  for  the  Government  of  the  United 
States,  under  present  circumstances,  to  withdraw 
the  troops  from  Texas,  and  thus  invite  the  In- 
dians to  attack  our  friends  in  that  State.  I  am 
not  prepared  to  say  that  such  a  course  would  be 
wise,  just  or  humane.  I  am  not  prepared  to  say 
that  such  a  course  would  promote  the  welfare  of 
this  country.  On  the  contrary,  if  we  should  with- 
draw thosetroops  and  invite  the  savages  to  slaugh- 
ter the  people,    I  think  such  conduct  would  be 


236 


unfriendly  on  the  part  of  the  Government  of  the 
United  States.  How  is  it  in  regard  to  the  forts  in 
the  Gnlf  of  Mexico.  I  see  a  majority  of  a  com- 
mittee in  the  Convention  of  Virginia,  sixteen  out 
of  twenty-one  members  have  declared  that  it  was 
proper  for  the  Federal  Government  to  hold  those 
forts  in  the  Gulf  of  Mexico,  and  necessary  for 
the  protection  of  our  commerce.  I  know  not 
how  that  may  be.  I  am  not  prepared  to  express 
an  opinion  upon  it,  but  surely  if  the  United  States 
do  hold  forts  in  the  Gulf  which  can  be  held  with- 
out offense  to  the  people  of  Florida,  and  which 
may  be  necessary  for  the  protection  of  our  com- 
merce, I  do  think  it  would  be  improper ,  under 
those  circumstances,  for  the  Federal  Government 
to  give  them  up.  In  reference  to  the  other  forts, 
it  might  be  well  to  abandon  them.  We  know 
the  President  is  about  to  abandon  Fort  Sumter, 
and  I  think  will  abandon  Fort  Pickens.  I  must  say 
that  I  trust  he  will  pursue  such  a  course  in  refer- 
ence to  the  forts  and  the  revenue  as  will  avoid  all 
hostle  collision.  Sir,  this  question  of  revenue  is 
one  I  am  not  at  present  able  to  express  my  opin- 
ion on  in  a  very  decided  manner.  We  know,  sir, 
that  the  tariff  established  by  the  Cotton  States  is 
much  lower  than  the  tariff  established  by  the 
Government  of  the  United  States.  Now  if 
any  amicable  arrangement  cannot  be  made, 
with  reference  to  this  tariff,  will  not  every 
gentleman  perceive  that  the  revenue  of  the 
General  Government  will  be  gradually  de- 
stroyed by  our  imports  coming  to  Southern  ports 
and  in  that  way  coming:  into  the  present  territo- 
ries of  the  United  States.  I  am  not  able  to  say 
what  the  best  course  is.  I  am  not  sufficiently  in- 
formed, and  in  my  ignorance  I  am  not  willing  to 
undertake  to  instruct  the  President  of  the  United 
States  how  he  shall  administer  the  Government, 
but  I  am  willing  to  say  he  ought  to  administer 
the  Government  so  as  to  avoid  all  hostile  collis- 
ion between  the  Federal  and  Confederate  gov- 
ernments. 

Mr.  Hough.  In  my  opinion  the  amendment 
is  merely  tautology.  It  is  the  same  thing  as  is 
incorporated  in  the  amendment  offered  by  the 
gentleman  from  Buchanan,  (Mr.  Donnell.)  I  re- 
gard it  as  a  fixed  fact,  that  if  the  troops  are  not 
withdrawn  from  the  forts  in  the  seceded  States, 
that  war  will  result.  I  had  rather  every  fort  in 
the  United  States  were  sunk  into  the  ocean,  and 
every  man-of-war  sunk  into  the  depths  of  the 
ocean,  than  civil  war  should  prevail  in  this  coun- 
try. Now,  the  Government  has  built  forts  in 
South  Carolina,  Florida,  and  all  around  the  gulf 
coast,  for  the  protection  of  Southern  people  and 
the  protection  of  commerce. 

The  people  of  the  South  have  formed  an  inde- 
pendent government.  They  think  they  are  able 
to  maintain  that  government,  and  when  they  no- 
tify our  Government  that  they  have  formed  a  gov- 
ernment, and  demand  the  forts,  if  their  demand 


is  not  granted,  they  will  consider  it  a  degrada- 
tion to  allow  a  foreign  power — as  they  regard  the 
United  States— to  keep  troops  in  those  forts ;  and 
the  consequence  will  be,  Southern  troops  will 
take  those  forts  and  civil  war  will  result,  Who 
does  not  know  that  a  large  number  of  persons  in 
the  border  States  would  fight  for  their  kindred 
in  a  conflict  of  that  kind,  and  that  the  country 
would  be  involved  in  civil  war.  Any  person  who 
knows  anything  about  the  Southern  courage,  gal" 
lantry  and  chivalry  that  exists  among  the  people 
in  the  slaveholding  States  of  the  Southern  Repub- 
lic, know  that  the  whole  country  will  be  involved 
in  civil  war. 

I  think  it  is  the  duty  of  the  President  of  the 
United  States  to  execute  the  laws  if  he  can  do  so 
with  a  view  of  preserving  our  institutions.  If  he 
has  to  execute  the  laws  to  destroy  the  institutions 
of  our  country,  that  it  is  not  the  object  of 
law;  and  if  the  laws  cannot  be  executed  without 
destroying  institutions  which  they  were  intended 
to  preserve,  then  the  President  ought  not  to  ex- 
ecute them.  It  is  the  duty  of  the  people  of  Mis- 
souri to  say  to  the  President  that  if  the  troops  are 
not  withdrawn,  civil  war  will  result.  They  ought 
to  state  it  as  a  fact,  that  he  may  be  advised  of  the 
grounds  on  which  he  is  administering  this  Gov- 
ernment; and  request  him  to  withdraw  the 
troops. 

These  are  my  views  on  the  proposition,  and  I 
therefore  move  to  reject  the  substitute  offered  by 
the  gentleman  from  Buchanan,  (Mr.  Hall.) 

Mr.  Moss.  I  hope  the  amendment  offered  by 
the  gentleman  from  Buchanan  will  pass.  When 
any  proposition  is  made  that  looks  to  the  preser- 
vation of  the  Union,  and  whenever  Missouri  is 
called  upon  to  give  an  expression  of  opinion  in 
regard  to  any  policy  that  will  have  a  tendency  to 
build  up  that  Union,  I  am  for  it. 

I  wish  to  say  a  few  words  concerning  the 
amendment  offered  by  my  friend  from  Buchanan, 
(Mr.  Donnell.) 

Mr.  President,  when  the  news  was  brought  to 
us,  a  few  days  ago,  by  telegraph,  that  the  Presi- 
dent had  given  orders  that  the  Troops  should  be 
withdrawn  from  Fort  Sumter,  how  did  it  affect 
the  people  of  Missouri?  We  all  rejoiced  and  felt 
like  shouting  for  joy.  And  why?  Because  we 
looked  upon  it  as  the  harbinger  of  peace.  And 
this  would  be  the  sentiment  throughout  the  South 
with  every  man  who  loves  the  Union,  and  who 
hopes  for  a  peaceable  adjustment  of  our  difficul- 
ties. And  I  say  here  to  the  Union  men  of  this 
Convention,  that  if  President  Lincoln— that  if  the 
telegram  that  reached  this  city  had  been  true, 
and  he  had  withdrawn  the  troops  from  Fort  Sum- 
ter, secessionism  would  have  died;  it  would  have 
been  the  most  fatal  blow  to  the  enemies  of  the 
Union  that  could  have  been  dealt.  And  now, 
when  Missouri  is  called  upon  to  say  what  policy 
should  be  recommended  in  relation  to  these  forts, 


237 


I,  for  one,  feci  it  my  duty,  and  in  harmony  with 
the  policy  I  have  advocated  in  this  Convention, 
to  give  my  support  to  this  amendment.  I  believe 
this  is  a  peace  measure.  The  objections  offered 
by  my  friend  from  Buchanan  (Mr.  Hall)  do  not 
strike  me  with  force.  He  says,  in  some  of  these 
seceded  S-.ares  the  people  will  be  left  unprotected. 
Sir,  they  have  worked  out  their  own  destiny; 
they  have  taken  the  responsibility  of  rais- 
ing the  secession  flag;  they  have  with- 
drawn themselves  from  the  protection 
of  this  Government,  and  now  I  am  in  favor  of 
letting  them  feel  the  force  of  that  thing,  and  I 
think  it  will  have  a  good  effect  on  them.  I  think 
it  an  attempt  to  awaken  in  their  minds  some  re- 
flections whereby  they  can  be  made  to  feel  the 
disadvantages  of  secession.  I  believe  it  will 
have  a  good  effect  upon  them.  I  can  see  no  ob- 
jection, so  far  as  my  judgment  goes  in  this  mat- 
ter, to  the  resolution  offered  by  the  gentleman 
from  Buchanan.  Whenever  any  member  of  the 
Convention  proposes  a  measure  that  looks 
to  the  building  up  of  this  Union,  I  am 
with  him.  I  voted  yesterday  against  the 
proposition  which  embodied  my  feelings. 
I  felt,  in  the  language  of  that  resolution,  that 
whenever  the  last  hope  was  extinguished  I  would 
go  with  the  South ;  but  I  doubt  the  policy  of  sta- 
ting that  position  now  in  this  Convention,  be- 
cause I  do  not  want  to  say  to  the  leaders  of  seces- 
sion in  the  South,  "Gentlemen,  when  you  force  us 
to  that  alternative,  then  we  will  go  with  you." 
If  every  border  State  took  such  a  position  as 
that  Fort  Sumter  would  be  attacked  be- 
fore to-morrow  night,  if  the  intelligence  could 
reach  the  leaders  of  secession  in  the  South.  The 
only  reason  I  voted  against  the  resolution  offered 
by  Mr.  Bast  yesterday — notwithstanding  my  sym- 
pathies are  with  the  South,  and  in  that  bitter  al- 
ternative I  expect  to  give  my  voice  for  Missouri 
going  there— was  that  I  doubted  it  as  a  question 
of  policy. 

But  this  proposition  looks  not  to  secession,  and 
I  contend  that  if  President  Lincoln  should  carry 
out  that  policy,  it  would  be  the  death  blow  of  se- 
cession in  the  Border  States,  and  in  the  South. 
He  Avould  be  understood  then  to  be  for  peace,  and 
the  bitterness  of  feeling  that  now  exists  against 
him  would  be  removed.  Looking  upon  it,  sir,  as 
a  great  Union  movement,  I  shall  give  my  appro- 
bation to  the  measure,  and  I  hope  that  Mr.  Hall's 
amendment  will  be  voted  down,  and  that  the 
amendment  of  my  friend  from  Buchanan  (Mr. 
Donnell.)  will  be  adopted. 

Mr.  Shackelford  of  Howard.  If  it  is  in 
order  I  wish  to  offer  an  amendment : 

"  And  it  is  the  opinion  of  this  Convention  that 
the  cherished  desire  to  preserve  the  country, 
and  restore  fraternal  feelings  would  be  promoted 
by  the  withdrawal  of  the  Federal  troops  from 
such  parts  of  the  seceded  States  where  there  is 


danger  of  a  collision  between  the  Federal  and 
State  forces." 

Mr.  Redd.  Mr.  President,  I  prefer  the  amend- 
ment. Preferring  the  amendment  to  the  substitute, 
I  wish  to  offer  some  reasons  for  the  vote  I  shall 
cast.  It  is  admitted  that  a  hostile  collision  between 
the  General  Government  and  the  forces  of  the 
seceded  States  would  not  only  dissolve  the 
Union,  but  destroy  all  hope  of  its  reconstruction. 
The  President  in  his  Inaugural  disclaims  any  in- 
tention of  invading  the  Southern  States  for  the 
purposes  of  subjugation,  but  he  distinctly  states 
that  he  will  hold  and  possess  the  forts  and  other 
property  of  the  United  States  within  their  limits, 
and  will  collect  the  revenue,  and  this  course  is 
made  to  depend  on  one  contingency  only,  that  the 
necessary  means  (men  and  money)  are  furnished. 
The  Custom  Houses  and  most  of  the  forts  are 
now  in  the  possession  of  the  Southern  Confedera- 
cy, and  that  Confederacy  is  fully  prepared  to 
defend  their  possession  at  the  cannon's  mouth. 
Mr.  Lincoln  says  he  will,  if  the  means  are  fur- 
nished, hold,  possess  and  occupy  the  places  and 
property  belonging  to  the  General  Government. 
It  is  an  old  saying,  that  catching  is  before 
hanging;  in  this  instance  taking  come3 
before  holding  or  possessing.  The  Southern 
Confederacy  has  an  army  of  fifty  thousand  men 
ready  to  march  at  an  hour's  warning.  An  at- 
tempt to  take  any  of  the  custom-houses  or  forts 
now  in  its  possession  would  involve  a  conflict 
between  that  army  and  the  forces  of  the  General 
Government.  That  would  be  war,  and  in  the 
language  of  the  resolution  to  which  this  is  an 
amendment,  would  "entirely  extinguish  all  hope 
of  an  amicable  settlement,"  and  as  it  might  fur- 
ther have  said,  would  not  only  dissolve  the  Un- 
ion, but  destroy  all  hope  of  its  reconstruction. 
This  amendment  requests  the  Administration  to 
refrain  from  any  attempt  to  collect  the  revenue  in 
the  seceded  States,  and  to  withdraw  the  troops 
in  those  States.  It  looks  to  the  preservation  of 
the  Union  by  recommending  a  course  of  policy 
that  would  prevent  a  hostile  conflict.  While 
I  do  not  boast  of  my  loyalty  to  the  Union  on  all 
occasions,  as  some  gentlemen  are  in  the  habit  of 
doing,  you  will  find  my  vote  recorded  for  every 
measure  tending  to  its  preservation.  Mr.  Lincoln, 
following  in  the  footsteps  of  his  predecessor,  has 
committed  a  fatal  mistake  in  taking  the  position 
that  the  seceded  States  are  yet  in  the 
Union;  and  while  occupying  that  po- 
sition, I  do  not  blame  him  for  avow- 
ing his  determination  to  hold,  possess  and 
occupy  the  forts,  arsenals  and  custom  houses, 
and  to  collect  the  revenue,  for  it  is  his  sworn  duty 
to  take  care  of  the  Government  property,  and  ex- 
ecute the  laws  everywhere  within  the  Union. 
Coercion  is  the  logical  sequence  of  the  proposi- 
tion that  those  States  are  yet  in  the  Union.  He 
is  to  blame  for  taking  a  false  position.    Whether 


238 


those  States  had  a  constitutional  right  to  with- 
draw from  the  Union  or  not,  is  one  question,  and 
whether  they  have  withdrawn  or  not  is  another 
and  totally  different  question.  Whether  they  had 
the  right  to  withdraw  or  not  is  a  legal  question, 
about  which  jurists  and  statesmen  may  and  do 
differ.  Whether  they  have  withdrawn  or  not  is  a 
question  of  fact,  about  which  I  do  not  see  any 
room  for  two  opinions.  What  are  the  facts :  they 
have,  by  separate  State  action,  severed  their  con- 
nection with  the  Union;  they  have  formed  a  Con- 
federacy of  their  own,  and  adopted  a  Constitution 
of  their  own;  by  that  Constitution  they  have  cre- 
ated a  Federal  Government  unknown  to  our  Con- 
stitution ;  that  Government  is  in  full  operation, 
exercising  all  the  powers  of  sovereignty,  and 
prepared  to  defend  its  claim  to  sovereignty 
against  all  who  may  question  its  right  by 
force  of  arms.  Why  then  are  they  not  out  of  the 
Union  ?  The  answer  is  that  they  had  no  consti- 
tutional right  to  go  out.  Admit  for  the  sake  of 
the  argument  that  the  Constitution  expressly  de- 
nies the  right  of  a  State  to  withdraw  from  the 
Union.  It  does  not  follow  that  they  are  yet  in  the 
Union  unles  you  are  prepared  to  assert  that  a 
State  cannot  do  wrong — cannot  do  an  act  that  vi- 
olates the  Constitution ;  an  assertion  that  I  pre- 
sume no  gentleman  on  this  floor  is  prepared  to 
make.  They  have  withdrawn,  whether  they  had 
the  right  to  do  so  or  not,  and  having  withdrawn 
they  are  no  longer  a  part  of  the  Union,  but  are 
within  the  limits  of  a  foreign  government;  and 
had  Mr.  Lincoln  acknowledged  the  fact,  it  would 
have  avoided  all  danger  of  collision — he  would 
have  had  no  more  right  to  attempt  to  enforce  the 
laws  or  collect  the  revenue  within  their  limits 
than  within  the  limits  of  Mexico  or  the  island  of 
Cuba.  I  prefer  the  amendment  to  the  substitute, 
because  the  amendment  requests  the  Administra- 
tion to  refrain  from  the  attempt  to  collect  the  rev- 
enue. The  substitute  does  not  go  to  that  extent. 
I  shall  therefore  vote  against  the  substitute  andv 
for  the  amendment. 

Mr.  Wright.  This  I  consider  a  matter  of  im- 
portance. That  it  would  be  wise  policy  in  the 
present  administration  to  withdraw  the  forces 
from  any  fort,  when  only  a  point  of  honor  is  in- 
volved, is  too  clear  for  debate.  It  ought  to  be 
done  instantly  and  without  hesitation.  A  great 
Government  like  ours  can  afford  to  dispose  of 
questions  of  honor  with  magnanimity.  But  the 
point  of  honor  is  not  the  only  question  we  must 
attempt  to  solve  here  as  statesmen.  The  forts  on 
the  peninsula  of  Florida  are  military  positions — 
constituting  the  key  to  the  Gulf  of  Mexico. — 
Now,  let  us  look  at  a  possible  contingency  in  the 
future :  Suppose  we  meet  our  Northern  brethren 
in  a  National  Convention,  and  they  make  an  ad- 
justment perfectly  satisfactory  to  us,  and  one 
which  will  keep  Missouri  and  the  border  slave 
States     in     the   Union   as  a    band   of    broth- 


ers, and  that  our  Southern  brethren  shall  not 
for  a  time  be  satisfied.  What  are  we  to  do?  If 
we  are  satisfied  and  remain  in  the  Union  because 
our  Northern  brethren  have  met  us  and  made  an 
adjustment  satisfactory  to  us,  we  have  put  our- 
selves in  a  condition  to  lose  the  command  of  the 
great  Gulf  of  Mexico  and  the  mouth  of  this  tri- 
butary, which  would  be  essential  to  us  in  that 
Union,  in  case  these  forts  are  given  up.  Are  we 
prepared  to  do  that?  Is  my  friend  from  Marion, 
(Mr.  Redd,)  so  tropical  in  his  tendency  that  while 
there  could  be  a  reunion  satisfactory  to  him ;  af- 
ter ail  the  difficulties  which  we  claim,  have  been 
satisfactorially  adjusted;  is  he  so  tropical  in  his 
tendencies  as  to  be  willing  to  surrender  the  key 
of  the  Gulf  of  Mexico  into  the  hands  of  another 
government  ?  I  trust,  sir,  I  have  said  enough  to 
show  that  the  matter  involved  is  important  and 
requires  consideration.  My  friend  from 
Marion  is  very  logical.  He  talks  about  the  truth 
of  this  subject  just  as  a  mathematician  would.  I 
know  that  in  the  pale  of  the  sciences  we  can  never 
move  a  step  without  logic,  and  that  every  advance 
in  science  must  be  a  logical  advance — a  step  by 
logic,  or  it  is  not  a  step  forward  at  all.  I  know 
that  in  the  range  of  the  exact  sciences  we  can 
push  logic  to  the  utmost  verge  of  thought,  and 
this  is  so  because  the  exact  sciences  live  by 
logic.  But  is  that  true  in  government,  and  is 
that  especially  true  in  the  American  Government  ? 
Government  is  the  most  practical  of  all  things, 
and  we  drop  all  logical  sequences  at  the  start,  in 
the  very  instrument  which  makes  it.  Any  states- 
man who  thinks  he  can  reach  any  practical  result 
by  following  a  logical  sequence  will  soon  discover 
his  logic  will  carry  him  against  something  infi- 
nitely more  important  than  his  logic.  I  wish, 
without  going  further  into  the  subject  now,  to 
make  a  motion  to  lay  these  proceedings  on  the 
tabic,  in  order  that  they  may  be  printed  and  ta- 
ken up  to-morrow  morning.  I  will,  however, 
withdraw  the  motion,  in  order  that  any  gentle- 
man, if  he  so  desires,  may  further  discuss  the 
matter. 

Mr.  Dunn.  I  see  no  necessity  for  any  delay  in 
acting  upon  the  amendment  offered  by  the  gen- 
tleman from  Buchanan,  (Mr.  Donnell,)  and  the 
substitute  and  amendment.  If  questions  of  this 
character  are  to  delay  the  proceedings  of  the 
Convention  from  day  to  day,  I  can  see  no  prospect 
of  terminating  our  labors  during  the  present  week. 
I  am  as  well  prepared  to  vote  now,  on  each  of 
these  propositions,  as  I  shall  be  to-morrow  morn- 
ing. I  do  not  suppose  that  any  one  expects  that  any 
new  phase  will  be  thrown  upon  the  question  be- 
tween now  and  to-morrow  morning.  If  the  mo- 
tion prevails  it  will  cause  delay,  and  I  am  there- 
fore opposed  to  the  motion  and  in  favor  of  imme- 
diate action  upon  the  questions  that  have  been 
raised  upon  these  amendments.  I  am  in  favor  of 
the  amendment  offered  by  the  gentleman  from 


239 


Buchanan,  (Mr.  Donnell,)  and  I  am  utterly  op- 
posed to  the  substitute  offered  by  the  other  gen- 
tleman from  Buchanan,  (Mr.  Hall.)  I  concur 
in  the  sentiments  so  well  expressed  by  my 
friend  from  Clay,  (Mr.  Moss.)  All  true  friends  of 
the  Union— and  I  claim  to  be  one  of  that  num- 
ber— are  exerting  themselves  to  the  utmost  to 
bring  about  an  amicable  adjustment  of  all  our 
troubles.  The  gentleman  from  St.  Louis,  (Mr. 
Wright,)  remarked,  truly,  in  his  speech  a 
few  days  ago,  that  there  must  be  an  adjust- 
ment of  our  troubles,  and  that  it  must  be 
such  an  adjustment  as  would  secure  our  con- 
stitutional rights;  and  that,  without  an  adjust- 
ment by  which  our  rights  would  be  secured, 
there  would  be  no  hope  of  preserving  the  Union. 
We  must  have  an  adjustment.  All  true  friends 
of  the  Union  are  laboring  to  bring  about  an  ad- 
justment; and  it  is  this,  as  I  remarked  the  other 
day,  which  constitutes  a  man  a  true  friend  of 
the  Union.  I  have  no  sort  of  faith  in  the  pro- 
fession of  a  man's  devotion  to  the  Union  who 
folds  his  arms  and  proposes  to  do  nothing 
for  the  Union.  I  know  some  gentlemen  claim 
to  be  friends  of  the  Union,  who  make 
no  efforts  to  save  it  from  destruction.  I 
claim  to  be  a  better  friend  of  the  Union  than 
any  man  who  occupies  such  a  position;  and 
I  claim  that  the  only  means  of  saving  the 
Union  is  to  bring  about  an  amicable  adjustment, 
and  I  claim,  in  behalf  of  myself  and  those  who 
act  with  me,  that  we  are  truly  friends  of  this 
Union.  But,  as  has  been  stated  by  others, 
this  requires  time.  We  cannot  expect  that  a 
matter  of  this  magnitude  will  be  adjusted  in  a 
day,  or  a  year.  It  requires  time.  Time  is  what 
we  want,  and  I  am  confident  that  if  time  is  al- 
lowed, these  matters  will  be  adjusted  in  a 
manner  that  will  secure  our  rights.  But 
all  hope  of  adjustment  will  be  lost  by  the 
inauguration  of  civil  war.  Hence  the  true 
friends  of  the  Union  keep  in  view  the  policy 
of  preserving  the  peace  of  the  country, 
as  a  matter  of  vital  importance,  while  they 
work  for  such  an  amicable  adjustment  as  will 
secure  to  us  our  constitutional  rights.  It  is 
a  matter  then  of  the  first  importance  and  prime 
necessity  that  the  peace  of  the  country  should  be 
preserved  long  enough  to  give  us  an  opportunity 
to  adjust  our  national  troubles.  The  amendment 
offered  by  the  gentleman  from  Buchanan  (Mr. 
Donnell)  looks  to  the  preservation  of  peace.  It 
looks  to  the  removal  of  the  only  things  likely  to 
endanger  the  peace  of  the  country,  and  which,  if 
not  removed,  may  result  in  civil  war.  You  know 
with  what  apprehension  we  have  looked  at  a 
possible  collision  at  some  of  the  Government 
forts.  The  amendment,  if  adopted,  will  remove 
all  apprehension  in  regard  to  a  collision  between 
the  Government  of  the  United  States  and  the 
Government  of  the  seceding  States.    Hence  we 


ought  to  raise  our  voice  in  reference  to  the  remo- 
val of  the  cause  of  collision.  The  voice  of  Mis- 
souri should  go  up  in  favor  of  this  proposition, 
which  I  regard  as  a  peace  measure.  We  ought 
to  advise  the  Government  to  withdraw  the  troops 
from  the  seceded  States.  The  gentleman  from 
Buchanan  (Mr.  Hall)  is  opposed  to  the  with- 
drawal of  the  troops  of  the  Government  from  the 
seceding  States  lest  the  Camanche — 

Mr.  Hall,  I  did  not  say  I  was  opposed  to  it, 
but  I  said  I  was  not  sufficiently  acquainted  with 
the  facts  to  advise  Mr.  Lincoln  in  regard  to  it. 

Mr.  Ddxn.  Well,  I  have  a  higher  opinion  of  the 
gentleman's  ability  and  information  than  he  seems 
to  entertain  himself.  Years  ago  I  voted  for  the 
gentleman  for  Congress.  I  was  one  of  the  many 
thousand  who  voted  for  him  again  and  again, 
and  sent  him  to  Congress  as  often  as  he  was  a 
candidate. 

The  Chair.  The  gentleman  is  certainly  out  of 
order.    He  is  not  debating  the  question  at  all. 

Mr.  Dunn.  I  will  come  to  the  point,  then.  The 
gentleman  (Mr.  Hall)  was  disclaiming  that 
he  took  any  position  in  regard  to  the  withdrawal 
of  these  troops.  I  understood  the  gentleman  to 
be  opposed  to  the  resolution  because  he  did  not 
know  but  that  the  Camanche  Indians  might 
slaughter  the  Texans.  Now  I  am  sure,  Mr. 
President,  that  every  member  of  this  Convention 
ought  to  be  wilhng  to  pursue  such  a  course  as  to 
avoid  civil  war,  which  would  drench  the  whole 
country  in  blood ;  and  I  do  not  think  any  gentle- 
man ought  to  be  willing  to  vote  down  this 
peace  proposition  under  the  vague  apprehen- 
sion that  the  Camanche  Indians  might  make 
an  attack  upon  the  inhabitants  of  Texas.  The 
inhabitants  of  Texas  have  in  times  past  been 
able  to  protect  themselves  from  the  Camanche 
Indians,  and  I  doubt  not  they  will  do  it  now ;  and 
I  doubt  not  also  that  if  they  are  unable  to  pro- 
tect themselves,  the  people  will  rally  to  their  res- 
cue with  as  much  promptness  as  has  been  here- 
tofore exhibited.  I  doubt  not  all  will  go  to  the 
rescue  whenever  they  are  in  peril.  Then  let  us 
not  vote  down  this  peace  measure  upon  any 
vague  apprehension  of  this  sort.  I  cannot  under- 
stand why  we  shall  hesitate  to  abandon  at  once 
these  forts;  I  cannot  understand  why  the  keeping 
of  the  government  troops,  or  such  of  them  as  are 
there,  should  be  insisted  upon.  It  may  be  that 
some  gentlemen  want  to  get  a  large  army  into 
the  seceded  States,  under  one  pretext  or  another, 
and  after  getting  it  there,  use  it  to  coerce  the 
Southern  people.  I  cannot  countenance  any 
such  plan.  If  the  seceding  States  are  to  be 
coerced  into  subjection,  let  us  do  it  bold- 
ly, and  like  men.  I  am  utterly  opposed  to  coer- 
cion in  any  form,  whether  under  the  pretext  of 
holding  the  government  forts,  or  under  the  other 
pretext  of  collecting  the  revenue.  But,  my 
friend  from  Buchanan,  (Mr.  Hall,)  if  I  understand 


•240 


him  correctly,  he  contends  that  we  ought  not  to 
withdraw  the  troops  of  the  Federal  Government; 
that  we  ought  to  hold  the  key  to  the  gulf.    Upon 
that,  I  have  this  to  say:  first,  seven    States  have 
withdrawn  from  the  Union;  second,  those  States 
have  organized  a  government  of  their  own,  and 
are,  in  point  of  fact,  a  separate  government;  al- 
though under  the  Constitution,  it  is  still  claimed 
that  they  are  part  and  parcel  of  the  United  States. 
This  necessarily  results  from  our   denial  of  the 
constitutional     right      of     secession.      Unless 
they   had   the  constitutional  right  to   secede — 
which  we   deny — they  are    yet,  in   contempla- 
tion   of     the    Constitution,    part     and     parcel 
of    the   United    States;    although  in   point   of 
fact  they  are   a    separate  and  distinct  govern- 
ment.   We  must  deal  with  the  facts  as  they  are. 
Is  it  compatible  with  the  honor  and  dignity  of  the 
Government  of  the  United  States,  to  resort  to  the 
collection  of  revenue  in  any  other  government  ? 
Is    it  compatible    with  the  position  which  the 
Government    of  the    United    States     occupies 
at   home    and   abroad,  to  resort  to  the  collec- 
tion  of  revenue    elsewhere    than  in  her  own 
limits  ?    I  speak  now  in  reference  to  the  govern- 
ment of  the  Confederated  States,  and  I  put  this 
question  to  the  gentleman  from  Buchanan;   and 
I  hope  I  shall  not  be  considered   out   of  order 
when  I  say  that  he  is  one  of  the  best  lawyers  in 
the  State.    Suppose  a  gentleman  comes  to  Mr. 
Hall  with  his  title  papers,  and  says :    "Mr  Hall, 
"I  have  a  piece  of  land,  and  here  is  the  evidence 
"of  my  title;  but  a  man  has  taken  possession  of 
"it  and  claims  it  as  his;  he  has  occupied  it, 
"cultivated  and  raised  a  crop  on  it;  now,  Mr. 
"Hall,  I  want  you  to  tell  me  what  remedy  there 
"is    for   me."    After   Mr.    Hall  has  examined 
the  title  papers,  and  pronounced  the  title  good— 
for  I  assume  that  the  title  is  good — I  desire  to 
ask  him  what  his  advice,  as  a  lawyer,  would  be? 
"Would  he    advise  his  client  to  take  his  wagon 
and    team   and    servants,    and    go   upon    the 
premises    and   take  a   part  of  the  crop  in  the 
field,    or     the    fruit     in     the     orchard,     and 
haul    them     off     the     premises?     "Would     he 
advise  this  as  a  lawyer?    If  he  would,  I  should 
change    my  opinion  of  him  as  a  lawyer   very 
suddenly.    But  I  know  he  would  not  give  any 
such  advice;  but  his  advice  would  be,  to  bring 
a  suit  of  ejectment,  and  in  that  way  recover  pos- 
session of  the  land.    Now  I  say,  all  this  thing  of 
holding  the  Government  forts  and  collecting  the 
revenue  of  the  States  that  have  seceded,  collecting 
a  little  at  Charleston,  a  little  at  Mobile  and  a  little 
at  New  Orleans— in  view  of  the  facts  of  the  case 
as  they  now  stand,  those  States  having  a  separate 
government  of  their  own— I  say  all  this  would  be 
analagous  to  the  petty  annoyances  to  which  Mr. 
Hall    would    subject    the    adverse   party,    by 
advising    his    client    to     go    with    his    team 
and     haul   a    part    of   the    fruit     and   crops 


from  the  premises  which  he  owns,  but  which 
are  occupied  by  another  party.  It  is  utterly 
unbecoming  a  great  Government  like  ours 
to  resort  to  any  such  annoyance.  There  is 
another  objection:  for  however  we  might  con- 
sider it,  yet  the  holding  of  the  forts  or  retaking 
the  Government  forts  in  any  of  the  seceding 
States,  or  collecting  the  revenue — though  we 
might  call  it  enforcing  the  law  or  what  we  please, 
the  government  of  the  seceded  States  would  call 
it  an  act  of  war,  and  would  treat  it  accordingly. 
Every  man  who  knows  the  facts  of  the  case, 
knows  that  the  government  over  which  Jefferson 
Davis  presides  would  treat  all  these  things  as 
acts  of  war,  and,  of  course,  the  same  consequen- 
ces would  grow  out  of  it,  as  would  grow  out  of 
war  actually  declared  on  our  part.  So  the 
case  is  reduced  to  this  simple  question,  wheth- 
er we  shall  organize  an  army  for  the  pur- 
pose of  conquering  the  seceding  States,  or 
whether  we  shall  withdraw  the  troops  from  the 
forts  of  the  seceded  States  and  wait  until  this 
matter  can  be  amicably  adjusted.  It  is  reduced 
to  the  question,  whether  we  shall  make  war  for 
the  purpose  of  subjugating  and  conquering 
them.  I  am  opposed  to  it,  and  especially 
to  doing  it  in  a  covert  manner.  If  it  must 
be  done  at  all,  either  one  way  or  another; 
if  we  must  bring  on  a  war,  let  us  do  it 
avowedly  and  not  covertly.  I  am  not  aware 
that  history  informs  us  that  the  British  govern- 
ment, when  our  forefathers  first  revolted,  took 
any  such  position  as  this — that  they  would  send 
troops  here  to  hold  the  forts;  but  they  took  a 
bolder  position;  they  came  here  with  the 
avowed  purpose  of  making  a  war.  Between 
the  two  I  prefer  an  open  and  manly  policy, 
rather  than  one  which  seeks  to  do  a  thing 
covertly.  I  say  we  must  look  at  this  matter 
in  its  true  light.  The  British,  I  know,  were 
utterly  unjustifiable,  as  every  man  descend- 
ed from  revolutionary  stock  must  say,  in  re- 
gard to  the  course  they  pursued  towards  our 
forefathers,  and  especially  do  we  condemn  them 
for  employing  foreign  mercenaries  and  Indians 
to  assist  them;  but  they  did  not  seek  to 
cover  up  their  purpose  by  a  pretext.  They 
came  openly  and  avowedly;  and  if  it  is  to 
be  the  policy  of  the  United  States  to  recon- 
quer the  seceded  States,  let  us  show  as  much 
manliness  and  magnanimity  as  our  mother 
country  exhibited  toward  our  fathers  in  the  Rev- 
olution. Let  us  not  send  an  army  into  the  se- 
ceded States  under  a  pretext.  I  do  not  believe  in 
that  system  of  preserving  the  Union.  I  agree 
with  every  word  Major  "Wright  said  in  condem- 
nation of  this  force  policy.  It  is  subversive  of 
every  principle  on  which  our  government  rests, 
and  would  result  in  the  overthrow  of  our  liberty, 
and  blast  the  hopes  of  freemen  throughout  the 
world.    Hook  towards  an  adjustment  of  our  dif- 


241 


Acuities  in  an  amicable  way;  let  us  meet  as  j 
brothers,  and  adjust  our  difficulties  and  secure  ! 
our  rights  under  the  Constitution,  and  thus  by  ! 
securing  their  rights  and  ours  we  may  hope  to  j 
win  back  our  seceded  sisters.  If  ever  we  get  ! 
them  back  it  must  be  in  this  way.  We  can  never  j 
get  them  back  by  coercion.  Concurring,  there-  j 
fore,  fully  in  the  amendment  offered  by  Mr.  Don-  \ 
nell,  I  shall  give  it  my  cordial  support. 

I  have  another    objection  to   the    substitute  j 
offered  by  my    friend    from    Buchanan,    (Mr.   j 
Hall,)   and  it  is    this:      It    avoids  the  expres-  j 
sion  of  any  opinion,  and  takes  the  ground  that  j 
we  are  not  sufficiently  advised  to  give  an  opinion,   j 
The  President  of  the  United  States  in  his  Inau-  I 
gural  Address  has  invited  an  expression  of  opm-  j 
ion,  as  shown  by  the  gentleman  from  Platte,  (Mr. 
Norton,)  the  other  day;    and  it  is  proper  we 
should    give  an  expression  of  opinion  whether  j 
we  should   hold   on    to    the    Government  forts  j 
in  the  seceded   States.    I   am    not  disposed  to 
take    the    position    that    we    are     not    suffi-  ! 
ciently   informed   in    relation    to  the   facts  to 
offer   any    opinion.    I  think  we  are  informed,   j 
and  it  must  be  apparent  to  every  member  of  the  \ 
Convention,  who  will  reflect,  that  it   would  be 
our  true  policy  to  withdraw   the    Government 
troops   from    the    seceded    States,    to   abstain 
from   the  collection  of  the  revenue,    and  help 
to  preserve  the  peace  of  the  country,  with  the 
hope  of  a  final  adjustment  of  our  difficulties  up- 
on a  basis  that  will  secure  to  us  our  constitution- 
al rights — trusting  not  only  that  we  shall  save  the 
Union  from  overthrow  and  destruction,  but  that  I 
the  movement  will  result  in  bringing  back  into 
the  Union  the  States  that  have  withdrawn. 

As  the  gentleman  from  St.  Louis  made  the  mo- 
tion to  lay  the  amendment  upon  the  table  in  or- 
der that  it  might  be  printed  and  made  a  special 
order,  and  then  withdrew  it,  I  now  renew  it,  if 
he  insists  upon  it. 

Mr.  Hall,  of  Buchanan,  moved  the  previous  | 
question,  but  withdrew  at  the  suggestion  of  Mr.   i 
Wilson,  in  order  to  enable  Mr.  Shackelford  to  re- 
new  his  amendment. 

Mr.   Shackelford,  thereupon,  renewed  his  ! 
amendment. 

Mr.  Hall  then  renewed  his  call  for  the  previ- 
vious  question,  which  was  sustained  by  the  fol- 
lowing vote : 

Ayes— Messrs.  Allen,  Bartlett,  Bass,  Birch, 
Bogy,  Breckinridge,  Broadhead,  Bridge,  Brown, 
Bush,  Calhoun,  Cayce,  Chenault,  Collier,  Comin- 
go,  Doniphan,  Donnell,  Douglass,  Drake,  Dunn, 
Eitzen,  Frayser,  Flood,  Foster,  Gantt,  Givens, 
Gorin,  Hall  of  Buchanan,  Hall  of  Randolph, 
Harbin,  Hatcher  Henderson,  Hendricks,  Hitch- 
cock, Holmes,  Holt,  How,  Howell,  Irwin,  Isbell, 
Jackson,  Jamison,  Kidd,  Leeper,  Long,  Marma- 
duke,  Marvin,  Matson,  Maupin,  McClurg,  Mc- 
Cormack,  McDowell,  McFerran,  Meyer,  Morrow, 


Moss,  Noell,  Orr,  Phillips,  Rankin,  Ray,  Ritchey, 
Rowland,  Scott,  Shackelford  of  Howard,  Shack- 
elford of  St.  Louis,  Sheeley,  Smith  of  Linn, 
Smith  of  St.  Louis,  Tindall,  Waller,  Watkins, 
Wilson,  Woodson,  Woolfolk,  Vanbuskirk,  Zim- 
merman and  Mr.  President— 78. 

Nays— Messrs.  Crawford,  Gamble,  Gravelly, 
Hill,  Hough,  Hudgins,  Knott,  Norton,  Pomeroy, 
Redd,  Ross,  Sawyer,  Turner  and  Welch— 14. 

The  question  next  occurring  on  the  adoption  of 
Mr.  Shackelford's  substitute  to  the  amend- 
ment, the  following  gentlemen  rose  to  explain 
their  votes : 

Mr.  Allen.  Mr.  President,  I  shall  vote  no  on 
this  question.  As  I  stated  the  other  day  in  my 
little  speech,  this  fifth  resolution  reported  by  the 
Committee  on  Federal  Relations  seems  to  me  to 
express  all  that  is  intended  by  the  amendments 
and  substitutes  offered  by  gentlemen  on  this  floor. 
It  seems  to  me  that  the  language  in  this  resolu- 
tion is  definite  enough ;  and  having  taken  a  posi- 
tion for  the  series  of  resolutions  as  they  come 
from  the  committee,  I  shall  vote  against  all 
amendments  and  substitutes  that  may  be  offered. 

Mr.  Long.  Mr.  President:  Called  to  vote  upon 
this  question,,  I  desire  to  say,  in  explanation  of 
that  vote,  that  whilst  I  have  no  serious  objection 
to  the  abstract  principle  involved  in  the  amend- 
ment, I  can  discover  no  existing  necessity  for  its 
adoption.  Without  entering  into  a  lengthy  dis- 
cussion on  the  merits  or  demerits  of  the  amend- 
ment, I  will  only  say  that  its  adoption  may  have 
a  deleterious  effect  upon  the  original  resolutions. 
And  whilst  I  would  have  preferred  a  slight  alter- 
ation in  the  wording  of  some  of  the  resolutions, 
I  was  satisfied  of  the  impropriety  of  demanding 
it.  And  as  I  could  not  forego  my  honest  convic- 
tions of  right  to  favor  the  individual  wishes  of 
other  gentlemen,  I  could  not  ask  the  sacrifice  of 
their  opinions  to  suit  mine.  This  feeling,  sir, 
more  than  any  other,  has  prompted  me  to  vote 
against  all  amendments  that  have  been  yet  offered. 
Sir,  if  this  were  the  only  amendment  to  be  offered, 
it  would,  perhaps,  effect  no  great  harm;  but 
amend  this  resolution  now  to  suit  a  few  mem- 
bers—to-morrow other  alterations  would  be  sug- 
gested— the  next  day,  still  others ;  and,  sir,  is  not 
the  ruinous  result,  in  such  event,  perceptible  to 
all  Union  men  on  this  floor.  And  further,  sir, 
when  this  series  of  resolutions  shall  have  passed 
through  a  multiplicity  of  amendments,  altera- 
tions, erasures  and  interlineations,  to  meet  the 
views  of  the  ninety  and  nine  different  minds  in 
this  body,  I  fear  the  majority  report  will  have 
been  reduced  from  its  lofty  character  as  a  great 
state  paper,  full  of  truths,  wisdom  and  intelli- 
gence, to  a  heterogeneous  mass  of  pretended 
facts,  imaginary  grievances  and  bombastic  threats 
to  remedy  ghost-like  evils. 

The  Committee  on  Federal  Relations  is  com- 


posed of  wise  and  able  men — men  of  large  and 


16 


242 


liberal  views — patriotic  and  Union-loving  gentle- 
men. And,  by  the  way,  they  were  judiciously 
and  impartially  selected  by  our  able  presiding 
officer.  And  now,  sir,  having  implicit  confidence 
in  their  fidelity  to  the  Union,  their  watchful  care 
of  the  ?iono7'  and  future  welfare  of  my  native 
State,  I  feel  that  I  am  reflecting  the  will  of  my 
constituents  by  endorsing  the  action  of  their  uni- 
ted counsels,  and  to  carry  out  this  settled  plan  of 
my  own,  I  shall  vote  against  all  amendments  cal- 
culated to  clog  the  passage  of  the  majority  report, 
including  the  original  resolutions.    I  vote  no. 

Mr.  Orr.  In  explanation  of  my  vote,  I  will 
say  that  I  heartily  indorse  the  fifth  resolution, 
which  implores  the  Federal  Government  to  use 
no  hostile  force  for  the  purpose  of  collecting  the 
revenue.  But  I  am  unwilling  to  say  that  it  shall 
not  do  it  peaceably  if  it  can.  I  therefore  vote 
no. 

Mr.  Sol  Smith.  If  President  Lincoln  wants 
our  advice  in  this  matter,  we  give  it  to  him  in 
very  good  words  in  the  original  resolution .  I 
consider  the  wording  of  that  resolution  to  be  suf- 
ficiently plain  and  explicit.  If  there  was  a  reso- 
lution here  to  instruct  our  Eepresentatives  in  Con- 
gress on  this  subject,  I  should  be  ready  to  vote 
on  it ;  but  for  us  here  to  undertake  to  give  advice 
to  President  Lincoln,  I  think  is  out  of  place. 

It  may  be  remembered  that  President  Monroe, 
in  a  dispatch  through  the  Secretary  of  State  to 
some  foreign  government,  used  in  substance  this 
language : 

"We  will  not  view  with  indifference  the  coloni- 
zation of  any  foreign  power  upon  this  continent." 
This,  it  will  be  owned  was  mild,  language;  but  I 
suppose  it  has  had  as  great  an  effect  as  any  sen- 
tence ever  written.  In  acting  here  for  the  State, 
we  say,  by  the  wording  of  the  resolution,  that 
"we  earnestly  entreat  the  Federal  Government  to 
preserve  the  peace."  Now,  that  is  as  far  as  at 
present  I  am  willing  to  go,  and  I  therefore  vote 
no. 

Mr.  Gamble.  I  desire  to  say  a  few  words  in 
explanation  of  my  vote  on  this  occasion.  By 
comparing  the  original  resolution  with  the  sub- 
stitute and  the  amendment  now  pending,  it  will 
be  seen  that,  while  the  former  addresses  itself  to 
both  the  Government  of  the  United  States,  and 
the  government  of  the  seceded  States,  the 
amendment  and  the  substitute  only  address 
themselves  to  the  Government  of  the  United 
States.  The  original  resolution  says  to  both,  we 
pray  you  to  abstain  from  the  exercise  of  military 
power,  and  it  purposes  to  put  this  State  in  the 
same  position  with  regard  to  both  sides.  But 
by  the  adoption  of  either  the  amendment  or  the 
substitute,  after  we  have  said  that  we  entreat  both 
sides  to  abstain  from  the  use  of  military  power, 
we  address  ourselves  emphatically  to  one  of  the 
parties,  and  recommend  the  course  to  be  pursued 
by  that  one  party.    We  recommend  to  the  Gov- 


ernment of  the  United  States,  the  withdrawal  of 
all  military  force  from  the  forts  in  the  seceded 
States,  but  we  do  not,  at  the  same  time,  profess 
to  address  ourselves  to  the  armed  body  of  men 
that  are  now  surrounding  those  forts.  Fort 
Sumter,  if  accounts  be  true,  is  now  surrounded 
by  thousands  and  thousands  of  armed  men,  with 
batteries  erected,  and  their  cannon  bearing  upon 
the  fort 

Mr.  Redd.  I  rise  to  a  point  of  order.  It  seems 
to  me  that  the  gentleman  is  going  out  of  the 
range  of  the  subject.  I  thought  that,  after  the 
previous  question,  all  debate  was  cut  off. 

The  Chair.  The  gentleman  has  the  right  to 
explain  his  vote,  nevertheless. 

Mr.  Gamble.  I  claim  the  right  to  explain  the 
reason  why  I  shall  vote  for  the  substitute  offered 
by  the  gentleman  from  Howard.  I  intend  to  vote 
for  that  substitute,  although,  after  it  may  have 
been  adopted  by  the  house,  and  it  is  proposed  to 
take  place  of  the  original  resolution,  I  shall  vote 
against  it.  I  think  that  all  its  force  is  already 
comprehended  in  the  fifth  resolution.  I  prefer  it 
to  the  amendment  now  pending,  because,  in  some 
measure,  it  carries  out  the  spirit  of  the  fifth  reso- 
lution; but  I  shall,  nevertheless,  vote  against  it 
whenever  the  issue  is  made  directly  between  it 
and  the  original  resolution.  I  hold  that  the  orig- 
inal resolution  is  right  in  its  spirit,  when  it  pro- 
poses to  ask  both  parties  to  abstain  from  vio- 
lence— to  abstain  from  the  attempt,  on  the  part  of 
the  people  of  South  Carolina,  to  assail  Fort  Sum- 
ter; and,  as  far  as  the  General  Government  is 
concerned,  to  abstain  from  any  violence  upon  the 
troops  of  South  Carolina.  So,  also,  in  regard  to 
Fort  Pickens,  which  is  surrounded  by  large  bands 
of  soldiers,  acting  under  State  authority,  with  all 
the  implements  of  war,  all  the  machinery  of  de- 
struction, all  that  is  necessary  to  bring  on  this 
country  civil  war.  It  is  essential  that  both  par- 
ties should  abstain  from  hostilities. 

We  suppose  by  this  resolution  that  our  counsel 
might  be  received  by  the  Government  of  the 
United  States — at  least  this  amendment  is  offered 
on  the  supposition  that  our  counsel  would  be  so 
received,  and  while  we  have  entreated  the  Gov- 
ernment of  the  United  States  not  to  use  military 
force,  and  while  we  have  entreated  the  seceded 
States  not  to  use  military  force,  we  are  asked  to 
proclaim  it  to  be  the  duty  of  the  Government  of 
the  United  States  to  withdraw  all  military  forces 
from  a  seceded  State.  That  is  the  proposition  in 
the  amendment.  It  says  nothing  of  the  withdraw- 
al of  military  forces  by  the  seceded  States.  Now, 
it  seems  to  me,  Mr.  President,  that  if  our  views 
are  to  be  respected  by  both  parties,  it  is  material 
that  we  should  address  ourselves  to  both  parties, 
and  do  it,  too,  in  the  language  of  entreaty.  It 
was  with  this  view  that  the  Committee  prepared 
the  fifth  resolution.  By  that  resolution,  we  do 
not  undertake  to  prescribe  the  duty  of  one  of  the 


243 


parties  to  withdraw  its  military  forces,  nor 
of  the  other.  Nor  do  we  undertake  to 
say  that  either  one  of  the  parties  should 
withdraw  its  military  force  for  fear  that 
the  presence  of  such  force  should  prove  an 
incentive  to  hostilities  by  the  other.  We  simply 
take  the  ground  of  mediation.  Over  and  over 
again  I  have  expressed  this  view,  and  advocated 
it  before  this  body  as  a  matter  of  policy.  If  I 
were  President  of  the  United  States,  I  would  with- 
draw all  the  troops  from  the  forts  that  are  in  the 
harbors  of  Southern  States.  I  would  take  this 
course  because  of  my  knowledge  of  Southern 
character,  because  of  my  belief  that  this  is  the 
way  to  win  the  Southern  heart  and  bring  them 
baek  to  loyalty.  But,  Mr.  President,  I  am  not 
President  of  the  United  States,  and  never 
will  be,  and,  therefore,  the  responsi- 
bility will  never  rest  on  me  of  decid- 
ing any  such  question.  So  far  as  giving  counsel 
to  the  Government  of  the  United  States  is  con- 
cerned, I  am  ready  to  give  that  counsel  whenever 
I  am  placed  in  a  position  in  which  my  counsel  is 
bound  to  be  respected.  After  Mr.  Lincoln  was 
elected  President,  and  after  the  State  of  South 
Carolina  had  seceded,  while  there  was  yet  a  con- 
test going  on  in  Georgia,  and  in  other  Southern 
States,  and  when  the  Union  men  there  were  try- 
ing to  stand  up  for  the  Union,  I  was  exceeding- 
ly anxious  that  Mr.  Lincoln  should  come  out 
with  some  declaration  of  his  views  of  policy, 
that  would  give  strength  to  the  Union  feeling  in 
the  Southern  States,  and  enable  the  advocates  of 
the  Union  to  meet  the  arguments  that  were 
brought  against  them  by  those  in  favor  of  seces- 
sion. But  I  did  not  offer  that  counsel  to  Mr. 
Lincoln  myself,  because  he  knew  I  did  not  be- 
long to  the  party  to  which  he  belonged,  and 
therefore  was  not  interested  in  the  maintenance 
of  the  power  of  government  in  that  party ;  and 
as  I  never  could  belong  to  an  anti-slavery  party, 
and  it  is  perfectly  impossible  that  I  ever  should, 
I  did  not  volunteer  any  such  counsel.  At  the  same 
time,  keeping  my  eyes  steadfastly  fixed  upon  the 
one  great  end  which  I  had  then  in  view, 
and  have  to-day  in  view,  I  endeavored  to 
ascertain  from  a  gentleman  here  of  my  acquain- 
tance, by  writing  to  him  from  the  East,  whether 
any  influence  could  be  exerted  upon  Mr.  Lincoln 
that  would  induce  him  to  come  out  and  make 
such  declaration.  So,  also,  here,  Mr.  President, 
when  it  comes  to  the  matter  of  deprecating  vio- 
lence between  the  parties,  as  likely  to  produce 
civil  war,  I  do  not  propose  to  turn  around,  after 
having  addressed  both  parties,  and  prescribe 
a  course  of  policy  to  the  Government  of  the 
United  States,  which  is  now  managed  by  a 
party  ■  to  which  very  few,  indeed,  of  this  Con- 
vention belong — I  do  not  propose  to  offer 
counsel,  which  is  not  very  likely  to  be  ac- 
cepted,   coming  from  a  body  of  men  who  are 


not  of  the  same  political  party.  I  can  offer 
entreaty  to  both  sides.  I  can  offer  entreaty  to  the 
Government  of  the  United  States,  and  the  gov- 
ernment of  the  seceded  States ;  but  I  cannot  hope 
that  the  counsel  of  this  Convention,  constituted 
as  it  is  of  men  who  belong  to  a  Southern  State, 
will  be  received  with  any  very  great  respect  by 
the  Administration  of  a  Government  altogether  in 
the  hands  of  a  different  party. 

Mr.  President,  I  repeat,  that  I  prefer  the  origi- 
nal resolution  to  both  the  amendment  and  the 
substitute  for  the  amendment.  That  resolution 
urges  that,  under  no  pretexts  whatever,  shall 
the  Government  of  the  United  States  or  of  the  se- 
ceding States  bring  upon  us  the  horrors  of  civil 
war.  The  language  is  plain  and  unmis- 
takable. It  covers  all  the  ground  which, 
as  mediators,  we  ought  to  take,  and  it 
is  a  little  gratuitous,  as  I  apprehend  that  we 
shall  enter  upon  the  detail  of  that  policy 
which  we  recommend  in  the  resolution.  As  I  un- 
derstand, the  Attorney  General  has  given  the 
opinion  that  the  revenue  cannot  be  collected  in 
the  Southern  ports,  at  any  place  but  in  the  ports; 
and  that  we  cannot  collect  it  on  shipboard,  be- 
cause an  act  to  that  effect,  which  was  passed  in 
the  administration  of  Jackson,  has  expired.  We 
therefore,  by  the  adoption  of  the  amendment,  of- 
fer a  counsel  in  relation  to  the  collection  of  the 
revenue,  when,  in  fact,  that  collection  cannot 
take  place.  There  is  no  one  Southern  port  in 
which  the  public  buildings  are  now  in  the  posses- 
sion of  the  United  States.  In  regard  to  Key 
West,  which,  I  believe,  is  a  fortress  mainly  de- 
signed for  the  protection  of  the  commerce  in  the 
Gulf  of  Mexico,  and  not  for  the  defense  of  any 
port,  and  which  is  the  strongest  fortress  on  the 
American  continent,  whether  that  is  claimed  to 
be  within  the  jurisdiction  of  Florida  or  not,  it  is 
one  of  those  forts  that  must  be  held  by  the  Gov- 
ernment of  the  United  States,  in  order  to  protect 
the  commerce  of  the  Gulf  against  the  piratical 
vessels  that  would  immediately  swarm  in  it,  as 
has  heretofore  been  the  case  whenever  that  power 
was  withdrawn. 

The  vote  on  substituting  Mr.  Shackelford's 
amendment  for  the  amendment  of  Mr.  Donnell, 
then  stood  as  follows : 

AvES-Messrs.  Bartlett,  Bass,Bast,  Bogy,  Brown, 
Cayce,  Chenault,  Collier,  Comingo,  Crawford, 
Doniphan,  Donnell,  Douglass,  Drake,  Dunn, 
Frayser,  Flood,  Gamble,  Givens,  Gorin,  Gravelly, 
Hall  of  Randolph,  Harbin,  Hatcher,  Hill,  Hough, 
Howell,  Hudgins,  Kidd,  Knott,  Marmaduke,  Mat 
son,  McCormack,  McDowell,  Morrow,  Moss,  No- 
ell,  Norton,  Phillips,  Pomeroy,  Rankin,  Ray, 
Redd,  Ritchey,  Ross,  Sawyer,  Sayre,  Shackelford 
of  Howard,  Sheeley,  Waller,  Watkins,  Welch, 
Wilson,  Woodson,  Woolfolk,  Vanbuskirk,  Zim- 
merman, and  Mr.  President. 


244 


Noes— Messrs.  Allen,  Birch,  Breckinridge, 
Broadhead,  Bridge,  Bush,  Calhoun,  Eitzen,  Fos- 
ter, Gantt,  Hall  of  Buchanan,  Henderson,  Hen- 
drick,  Hitchcock,  Holmes,  Holt,  How,  Irwin,  Is- 
bell,  Jackson,  Jamison,  Leeper,  Long,  Marvin, 
Maupin,  McClurg,  McFerran,  Meyer,  Orr,  Row- 
land, Scott,  Shackelford  of  St.  Louis,  Tindall, 
and  Turner. 

The  question  next  being  on  the  adoption  of  Mr. 
Shackelford's  amendment,  the  following  expla- 
nations were  given : 

Mr.  Bush.  Mr.  President,  I  desire  to  make  a 
few  remarks  in  explanation  of  my  vote;  I  deem 
it  due  to  myself  and  the  thousands  of  German 
citizens  whom  I  have  the  honor  to  represent,  and 
who  have  been  assailed  again  and  again  as  co- 
ercionists.  I  have  to  ask  your  indulgence,  as  I 
am  quite  unaccustomed  to  speak,  and  to  speak 
in  a  language  that  is  not  the  idiom  of  my  native 
country.  But,  sir,  while  I  confess  myself  want- 
ing in  oratory,  nay  even  in  correct  pronunciation, 
I  am  not  wanting  in  love  of  peace ;  I  am  not 
wanting  in  anxiety  for  the  peace  and  welfare  of 
Missouri.  And  more  than  this,  while  you,  Mr. 
President,  and  all  the  members  of  this  Conven- 
tion, I  believe,  only  imagine  the  horrors  of  war 
and  fancy  the  evils  of  revolution,  I  know  them ; 
my  eyes  have  seen  what  you  cannot  imagine, 
what  I  cannot  describe — the  .terrors  of 
civil  war,  of  bloodshed  and  revolution.  But 
while  I  know  all  this,  I  still  cannot,  for  the 
sake  of  peace,  go  any  further  than  is  expressed 
in  this  fifth  resolution.  I  can  earnestly  entreat 
the  Federal  Government,  and  may  ask,  in  broth- 
erly spirit,  our  erring  sister  States  to  withhold,  to 
stay  the  arm  of  military  power;  but  I  cannot  go 
any  further,  and  must  oppose  the  amendment.  I 
consider  it  not  only  the  duty  of  the  Government  to 
maintain  itself  in  those  forts,  and  that  it  has  no 
right  to  give  up  the  property  of  the  United  States 
to  the  seceding  States ;  but  even  if  the  President 
had  the  right,  and  should  consider  it  his  policy 
to  do  so,  it  would  not  secure  peace.  I  go  so  far 
as  to  say,  that  it  the  Federal  Government 
should  even  choose  to  waive  the  collection 
of  revenue  in  those  ports,  as  was  propo- 
sed by  the  gentleman  from  Buchanan,  (Mr. 
Donnell,)  it  would  be  far  from  securing 
peace.  I  ask  him,  as  a  merchant  and  a  bank- 
er, (as  I  perceive  he  is,  from  the  list  before 
me,)  does  he  believe  that  New  York  could  peace- 
fully look  on  ?  Are  her  great  commercial  inter- 
ests less  dear  to  her  than  the  cotton  interest  is  to 
the  South  ?  You  know,  better  than  I  do,  that, 
at  the  time  of  the  first  confederation,  a  war 
nearly  ensued  between  Massachusetts  and  Rhode 
Island,  on  account  of  unequal  duties  of  import; 
and  what  was  that  trade  then  to  the  magnitude 
of  the  commerce  of  our  day  ?  I  cannot,  there- 
fore, look  on  this  amendment  as  a  peace  meas- 
ure, and  have  to  vote  against  it.  I  hope,  however, 


that  the  present  administration  is  for  peace,  and 
will  not  bring  war  upon  us.  I  trust  the  seceding 
States  will  reflect  and  return— but  should  a 
conflict  be  inevitable,  I  pledge  myself  that 
your  German  fellow  citizens  will  stand  by  the 
Government  and  the  Union.  They  love  peace. 
While  they  have  left  their  native  land,  sweet 
home,  to  enjoy  the  blessings  of  peace  and  of  liber- 
ty, the  history  of  their  own  thirty-four  confede- 
rate States  of  distracted  Germany  teaches  them 
that  there  is  no  peace  and  no  liberty  without 
union ;  and  this  Convention,  composed  as  it  is  to 
a  large  extent  of  sons  of  Kentucky,  will  cer- 
tainly forgive  them  if  they  think  with  Ken- 
tucky's greatest  son,  Henry  Clay,  that  "we  owe 
a  paramount  allegiance  to  the  whole  Union — a 
subordinate  one  to  our  own  State."  I,  there- 
fore, vote  against  the  amendment. 

Mr,  Hendrick.  I  merely  desire  to  say,  in  giv- 
ing my  vote  on  this  question,  that  I  consider  the 
language  of  the  original  resolution  sufficiently 
explicit  to  cover  the  whole  ground  of  conciliation 
which  we  have  taken  in  this  body.  I  vote  aye  on 
this  amendment,  but  when  the  question  comes  on 
the  original  resolution,  I  shall  prefer  to  have  it  go 
unamended. 

Mr.  Hudgins.  I  gave  my  vote  in  favor  of 
the  resolution  of  the  gentleman  from  Bu- 
chanan (Mr.  Donnell,)  preferring  it  to  the 
amendment  of  Mr.  Shackelford,  because  there 
is  more  in  it.  Inasmuch,  however,  as  that 
resolution  failed,  I  am  willing  to  vote  for 
this  amendment.  I  am  in  favor  of  any  measure 
that  is  proposed  in  this  Convention  for  the  pur- 
pose of  restoring  peace  to  the  country.  In  the 
fifth  resolution  we  have  said  that  we  are  opposed 
to  coercion ;  that  any  attempt  to  coerce  a  seceding 
State  would  bring  the  horrors  of  civil  war  upon 
us.  There  is  not  a  member,  I  apprehend,  in  this 
Convention,  but  who  will  at  once  see  that  all  hope 
of  conciliation  is  lost,  and  all  efforts  to  effect  a 
compromise  are  frustrated,  so  soon  as  coercion  is 
attempted.  I  do  not  want  to  see  that  time  come, 
and  I  would  do  anything  in  my  power  to  avert  it. 
I  shall  therefore  vote  for  this  amendment.  As  I 
have  said  before,  it  does  not  go  so  far  as  the 
amendment  for  which  it  was  substituted,  but  it 
is  still  a  step  in  the  right  direction,  and  should 
receive  the  support  of  this  Convention. 

Mr.  Irwin.  I  am  as  much  opposed  to  coer- 
cion as  any  man  could  possibly  be,  but  believing 
that  the  sense  of  this  Convention  upon  that  sub- 
ject has  been  fully  and  clearly,  and  explicitly  set 
forth  in  the  original  resolution,  I  shall  vote  no. 

Mr.  McCormack.  Perhaps  there  is  not  a  gen- 
tleman upon  this  floor  who  is  more  opposed  to 
coercion  than  myself,  and  if  I  believed  that,  with 
the  adoption  of  this  amendment,  the  voice  of 
Missouri  would  be  more  potent  for  a  reconcilia- 
tion than  by  the  simple  adoption  of  the  fifth  res- 
olution, I  should  vote  for  it;  but,  sir,  I  believe 


245 


that  the  fifth  resolution  itself  contains  all  that 
can  be  available.  It  is  the  strongest  language 
of  entreaty,  and  beseeches  the  Government  of 
the  United  States,  upon  no  pretext  whatever ,  to 
bring  about  war.  I  do  not  see,  on  reading  the 
resolution,  that  any  language  of  entreaty  could 
be  used  stronger  than  that.  I  look  upon  this 
amendment  as  carrying  out  almost  the  identical 
objects  which  the  resolution  proposes  to  accom- 
plish, and  do  not,  therefore,  deem  it  necessary. 
I  shall  vote  no. 

Mr.  Redd.  I  cordially  indorse  the  resolution 
as  it  stands,  but  as  it  stands  I  think  it  is  in  the 
shape  of  resolutions  which  we  ordinarily  pass  at 
mass  meetings.  My  view  is,  that  this  Conven- 
tion was  called,  not  so  much  to  express  senti- 
ments, as  to  act — to  do  something  for  the  preser- 
vation of  the  Union.  While  the  resolution  ex- 
presses a  proper  sentiment,  it  don't  do  anything, 
nor  does  it  tell  anybody  else  to  do  anything.  I 
think,  taking  into  consideration  the  President's 
message,  that  there  is  no  danger  of  any 
resort  to  military  power,  except  in 
the  collection  of  revenue.  This  amendment 
goes  further  than  the  resolution  in  this,  that  it 
requests  Mr.  Lincoln  to  withdraw  the  troops 
from  the  forts  within  the  limits  of  the  seceding 
States.  If  that  is  done,  it  removes  all  cause  or 
probability  of  hostile  collision.  I  preferred  the 
other  amendment  because  it  went  one*  step  fur- 
ther; but  lam  willing  to  vote  for  this  amend- 
ment, because  it  requests  the  Government  to  do 
an  act,  the  doing  of  which  will  tend  materially 
to  save  the  Union.  I  will  vote  for  any  measure 
which  is  calculated  to  restore  peace  and  save  the 
Union. 

Mr.  Woolfolk.  Mr.  President,  I  shall  vote 
for  this  amendment,  because  it  is  in  coincidence 
with  my  own  feelings,  and  I  am  satisfied  it  re- 
flects the  sentiments  of  my  constituents.  Seven 
of  the  cotton  States  have  passed  ordinances  of 
secession.  Whether  they  had  the  Constitutional 
right  to  pass  such  ordinances,  or  whether  they 
were  justified  in  revolution,  is  not  the  ques- 
tion. The  fact  is,  they  have  passed  the  ordi- 
nances; they  have  adopted  a  constitution  and 
formed  a  government.  The  Federal  Government 
may  have  the  right  to  enforce  the  laws  and  to  re- 
tain the  forts,  but  it  is  not  always  policy  to  assert 
our  rights.  The  question  is,  What  policy  will 
preserve  and  restore  the  Union  ?  My  anwer  is — 
peace.  War  will  break  the  last  tie  that  binds  the 
seceding  States  to  the  Union,  and  an  ocean  of 
blood  will  roll  between  us  forever.  It  is  true  that 
many  of  these  forts  are  important  for  national 
purposes.  It  is  a  national  misfortune  to  be  forc- 
ed to  abandon  them — but  the  present  crisis  is  also 
a  national  misfortune.  The  secession  of  seven 
States  is  the  greatest  national  misfortune — and  we 
are  simply  to  decide  whether  we  will  add  war  to 
our  other  calamities.    If  the  seceding  States  re- 


main as  they  are,  we  cannot  expect  to  retain  the 
forts  in  their  midst,  in  peace — besides,  they  are  of 
no  value  to  the  Federal  Government,  unless  those 
States  remain  a  part  of  the  government.  If  they 
return  to  the  Union,  they  will  bring  the  forts  with 
them— if  they  do  not  return,  the  Federal  Govern- 
ment may  as  well  abandon  the  forts,  unless  it  ex- 
pects to  coerce  them.  This  would  be  madness — 
a  conflict  between  the  Federal  Government  and 
the  seceded  States  would  only  render  the  citizens 
of  those  States  a  unit  in  their  hostility  to  the  gov- 
ernment— at  present,  they  are  divided.  In  some 
of  these  States,  large  minorities — in  others,  silent 
majorities,  are  opposed  to  this  secession  move- 
ment. But,  if  these  forts  are  retained,  and  a  con- 
flict ensues,  every  drop  of  Southern  blood  that  is 
shed  will  make  a  thousand  rebels.  If 
those  States  return  to  the  Union,  their 
own  citizens  must  make  the  effort 
to  return.  The  fight  must  be  made  within  their 
own  limits.  No  foreign  influence  beyond  their 
limits  can  ever  coerce  them  back.  Should  the  day 
come  when  a  burdened  people  desire  to  shake 
off  their  revolutionary  masters  and  return  again 
to  the  Union,  it  would  then  be  the  duty  of  the 
Federal  Government  to  prevent  oppression  by  an 
armed  minority,  and  enable  the  majority  to  fairly 
express  their  desires.  In  my  opinion  the  Federal 
Government  should  never  act  upon  those  States 
except  through  the  agency  of  the  conservative 
element  within  their  own  limits.  If  time  is  ne- 
cessary for  the  action  of.that  clement,  let  us  wait. 
Compromise  may  restore  the  Union,  but  the 
sword  can  never  preserve  it. 

Mr.  Shackelford's  amendment  was  then  adopted 
by  the  following  vote : 

Ayes  —  Messrs.  Allen,  Bogy,  Breckinridge, 
Broadhead,  Bridge,  Bush,  Calhoun,  Cayce,  Doug- 
lass, Eitzen,  Foster,  Gamble,  Gantt,  Gravelly, 
Hall  of  Buchanan,  Hall  of  Randolph,  Henderson, 
Hendrick,  Hitchcock,  Holmes,  Holt,  How,  Irwin, 
Isbell,  Jackson,  Jamison,  Kidd,  Leeper,  Long, 
Marmaduke,  Marvin,  Maupin,  McClurg,  McCor- 
mack,  McDowell,  McFerran,  Meyer,  Morrow, 
Xoell,  Orr,  Phillips,  Pomeroy,  Rankin,  Ross, 
Rowland,  Scott,  Shackelford  of  Howard,  Shack- 
elford of  St.  Louis,  Smith  of  Linn,  Turner,  Wil- 
son, Yanbuskirk,  Zimmerman  and  Mr.  President. 

Noes— Messrs.  Bartlett,  Bass,  Birch,  Brown, 
Chenault,  Collier,  Comingo,  Crawford,  Doniphan, 
Donnell,  Drake,  Dunn,  Frayser,  Flood,  Givens, 
Gorin,  Harbin,  Hatcher,  Hill,  Hough,  Howell, 
Hudgins,Knott,  Matson,  Moss,  Norton,  Ray,  Redd, 
Ritchey,  Sawyer,  Sayre,  Sheeley,  Smith  of  St. 
Louis,  Tindall,  Waller,  Watkins,  Welch,  Wood- 
son and  Woolfolk. 

Mr.  Henderson  moved  to  adjourn.  [Cries  of 
"No,  no!"] 

The  motion  to  adjourn  was  put  and  rejected. 

The  question  next  being  on  the  adoption  of  Mr. 
Shackelford's  amendment  as  an  amendment  to 


246 


the  original  resolution,  it  was  answered  affirma- 
tively by  the  following  vote : 

Ayes — Messrs.  Bartlett,  Bass,  Bogy,  Brown, 
Cayce,  Chenault,  Collier,  Comingo,  Craw- 
ford, Doniphan,  Donnell,  Douglass,  Drake, 
Dunn,  Flood,  Givens,  Gorki,  Gravelly,  Harbin, 
Hatcher,  Hill,  Hough,  Howell,  Hudgins,  Kidd, 
Knott,  Marmaduke,  Matson,  McDowell,  Morrow, 
Moss,  Noell,  Norton,  Phillips,  Rankin,  Ray,  Redd, 
Ritchey,  Ross,  Sawyer,  Say  re,  Scott,  Shackelford 
of  Howard,  Sheeley,  Watkins,  Welch,  Wilson, 
Woodson,  Woolfolk,  Vanbuskirk  and  Mr.  Presi- 
dent, 

Noes — Messrs.  Allen,  Birch,  Breckinridge, 
Broadhead,  Bridge,  Bush,  Calhoun,  Eitzen,  Fray- 
scr,  Foster,  Gamble,  Gantt,  Hall  of  Buchanan, 
Hall  of  Randolph,  Henderson,  Hendrick,  Hitch- 
cock, Holmes,  Holt,  How,  Irwin,  Isbell,  Jackson, 
Jamison,  Johnson,  Leeper,  Long,  Marvin,  Mau- 
pin,  McClurg,  McCormack,  McFerran,  Meyer, 
Orr,  Pomeroy,  Rowland,  Shackelford  of  St.  Louis, 
Smith  of  Linn,  Smith  of  St.  Louis,  Tindall,  Turn- 
er,  Waller,  Wright  and  Zimmerman. 

The  fifth  resolution,  as  amended,  was  then 
adopted  by  the  following  vote : 

Ayes— Allen,  Bartlett,  Bass,  Birch,  Bogy, 
Bridge,  Breckinridge,  Brown,  Calhoun,  Cayce, 
Chenault,  Collier,  Comingo,  Crawford,  Doni- 
phan, Donnell,  Douglass,  Drake,  Dunn,  Frayser, 
Flood,  Foster,  Gamble,  Gantt,  Givens,  Gorin, 
Gravelly,  Hall  of  Buchanan,  Hall  of  Randolph, 
Harbin,  Hatcher,  Hendrick,  Holmes,  Holt, 
Hough,  Howell,  Hudgins,  Irwin,  Isbell,  Jackson, 
Jamison,  Johnson,  Kidd,  Knott,  Leeper,  Long, 
Marmaduke,  Marvin,  Matson,  Maupin, McClurg, 
McCormack,  McDowell,  McFerran,  Morrow, 
Moss,  Noell,  Norton,  Orr,Phillips,  Pomeroy,  Ran- 
kin, Ray,  Redd,  Ritchey,  Ross,  Rowland,  Saw- 
yer, Say  re,  Scott,  Shackelford  of  Howard,  Shack- 
elford of  St.  Louis,  Sheeley,  Smith  of  Linn, 
Smith  of  St.  Louis,  Tindall,  Turner,  Waller, 
Watkins,  Welch,  Wilson,  Woodson,  Woolfolk, 
Wright,  Vanbuskirk,  Zimmerman,  and,  Mr. 
President. 

Noes  —  Broadhead,  Bridge,  Bush,  Eitzen, 
Hill,  Hitchcock,  How. 

Mr.  Hitchcock,  in  explaining  his  vote,  said 
that  he  heartily  concurred  in  the  spirit  of  the 
resolution  as  reported  from  the  committee, 
and  would  have  liked  to  see  it  adopted  bv 
the  Convention.  He  could  not,  however,  see  the 
propriety  of  this  Convention  dictating  to  the 
President  of  the  United  States  what  course  he 
ought  to  pursue,  and  would  therefore  vote  no  on 
the  resolution  as  amended. 

The  Secretary  read  the  sixth  resolution,  as  fol- 
lows : 

Resolved,  That  when  this  Convention  adjourns 
i:s  session  in  the  city  of  St.  Louis,  it  will  adjourn 
to  meet  in  the  Hall  of  the  House  of  Representa- 


tives at  Jefferson  City,  on  the  third  Monday  of 
December,  1861. 

Mr.  Hall  called  the  previous  question,  which 
was  sustained. 

Mr.  Redd.  I  should  like  to  know  if  the 
adoption  of  the  sixth  resolution  will  in  any  way 
interfere  with  the  resolution  before  the  House 
in  regard  to  the  Border  State  Convention. 

The  Chair.    Not  at  all. 

The  question  being  on  the  adoption  of  the 
sixth  resolution,  the  following  explanation  of 
votes  were  given : 

Mr.  Gravelly.  I  have  no  desire  to  be  placed 
conspicuously  upon  the  record.  I  never  held 
office  in  the  State,  and  do  not  expect  to  be  a  can- 
didate for  any  office;  but,  as  a  member  of  this 
Convention,  I  intend,  so  far  as  I  am  able,  to 
represent  the  wishes  of  my  constituents  upon  all 
questions  before  this  body  ?  I  am  satisfied,  sir, 
that  I  represent  a  district  which  is  opposed  to  the 
sixth  resolution ;  and  although,  for  myself,  so  far 
as  any  aspirations,  or  the  gratification  of  desires 
in  the  future  for  office  are  concerned,  I  might  be 
in  favor  of  the  resolution ;  still,  in  casting  my 
vote,  I  expect  to  act  in  obedience  to  what  I  be- 
lieve to  be  the  wishes  of  the  people  of  the  Seven- 
teenth Senatorial  District.  I  am  satisfied  they  are 
opposed  to  so  many  extra  sessions  of  the  Legisla- 
ture, and  that  they  would  be  opposed  to  a  session 
of  this  Convention  to  convene  in  Jefferson  City  on 
the  third  Monday  in  December.  They  would 
be  opposed  to  it,  because  they  were  opposed  to 
this  Convention  meeting  at  all.  They  did  not  con- 
sider it  necessary,  and  I  am  satisfied  that  if  I 
reflect  their  wishes  here,  I  must  vote  against  an 
adjourned  session.  They  desire  the  preservation 
of  the  Union,  and  as  they  know  that  the  only 
way  by  which  Missouri  can  get  out  of  the  Union 
is  by  the  action  of  State  conventions,  they  would 
have  voted  by  a  very  large  majority  against  this 
Convention,  if  permitted  to  vote  upon  the  ques- 
tion. I  am  satisfied  they  would  be  glad  if  this 
Convention  would  adjourn  sine  die  to-day.  They 
would  have  been  glad  if  the  Convention  had 
adjourned  sine  die  on  the  first  day  in  Jefferson 
city.  I  therefore  feel  bound,  in  obedience  to  their 
wishes,  to  vote  against  this  resolution. 

I  will  say  this,  however,  that  in  casting  this 
vote,  I  do  not  wish  to  indicate  that  the  people  of 
my  District  are  dissatisfied  with  this  Convention, 
on  account  of  its  being  a  Union  Convention.  Far 
from  it.  They  are  satisfied  with  it,  and  will  be 
satisfied  with  its  action  here.  But  being  a  Union 
loving  people  they  desire  an  adjournment 
sine    die,     and    I     shall      vote      accordingly. 

Mr.  Orr.  Mr.  President,  I  had  intended  to 
have  offered  an  amendment  to  the  sixth  resolu- 
tion to  the  effect  that  we  would  not  be  called  to- 
gether in  December  if  the  difficulties  now  divid- 
ing the  people  were  amicably  settled  previous  to 
that  time,  as  it  would  cost  the  State  a  considera- 


247 


ble  amount  of  money,  and  we  have  not  much  to 
spare;  but  the  gentleman  has  called  for  the  pre- 
vious question.  I  don't  want  us  ever  to  meet 
again  unnecessarily,  but  am  satisfied  we  are  elect- 
ed for  life. 

Mr.  Redd.  It  was  my  desire  first  to  dispose  of 
the  resolution  in  regard  to  the  Border  State  Con- 
vention before  taking  up  this  resolution.  My  ac- 
tion in  regard  to  this  resolution  in  that  case 
would  have  been  somewhat  dependent  upon  the 
action  which  the  Convention  would  take  in  regard 
to  the  resolution  calling  a  Border  State  Conven- 
tion. If  the  proposition  for  such  a  Convention 
had  been  voted  down,  I  should  have  been  in  favor 
of  adjourning  sine  die.  I  have  such  a  resolution 
prepared  to  offer  as  a  substitute  to  this,  but 
the  gentleman  knowing  that  fact,  moved  the 
adoption  of  this  resolution  and  the  previous 
question  in  the  same  breath,  to  cut  me  off 
from  presenting  the  substitute,  and  to  avoid 
voting  on  it.  As  it  is,  I  must  conform 
to  the  tactics,  unfair  though  they  may  be,  of  the 
majority;  and  being  compelled  to  vote,  I  vote  no. 

The  sixth  resolution  was  thereupon  adopted  by 
the  following  vote : 

Ayes— Allen,  Bartlett,Bass,  Birch,  Bogy,  Breck- 
inridge, Broadhead,  Bridge,  Brown,  Bush,  Cal- 
houn, Cayce,  Collier,  Douglass,  Drake,  Dunn,  Eit- 
zen,  Frayser,  Flood,  Foster,  Gamble,  Gantt,  Hall  of 
Buchanan,  Hall  of  Randolph,  Hatcher,  Hender- 
son, Hendricks,  Hill,  Hitchcock,  Holmes,  Holt, 
Hough,  How,  Irwin,  Isbell,  Jackson,  Jamison, 
Johnson,  Kidd,  Leeper,  Long,  Marmaduke, 
Marvin,  Maupin,  McClurg,  McCormack, 
McFerran,  Meyer,  Morrow,  Moss,  Noell,  Orr, 
Phillips,  Pipkin,  Rankin,  Ray,  Ross,  Rowland, 
Scott,  Shackelford  of  Howard,  Shackelford  of  St. 
Louis,  Sheeley,  Smith  of  Linn,  Smith  of  St. 
Louis,  Tindall,  Turner,  Waller,  Watkins,  Welch, 
Wilson,  Woodson,  Woolfolk,  Wright,  Vanbus- 
kirk,  Zimmerman,  Mr.  President— 78. 

Noes.— Chenault,  Comingo,  Crawford,  Doni- 
phan, Donnell,  Givens,  Gorin,  Gravelly,  Harbin, 
Howell,  Hudgins,  Kiaott,  Matson,  McDowell, 
Norton,  Redd,  Ritchey,  Sawyer,  Sayre — 19. 

Mr.  Phillips  moved  to  adjourn.  Disagreed 
to  by  46  ayes  to  48  noes. 

The  Secretary  read  the  seventh  resolution,  as 
follows : 

Resolved,  That  a  committee  of be  elected 

by  this  Convention,  a  majority  of  which  shall 
have  power  to  call  this  Convention  together  at 
such  time  prior  to  the  third  Monday  of  Decem- 
ber, and  at  such  place  as  they  may  think  the 
public  exigencies  require,  and  the  survivors  or 
the  survivor  of  said  committee  shall  have  power 
to  fill  any  vacancies  that  may  happen  in  said 
committee  by  death,  resignation,  or  otherwise, 
during  the  recess  of  this  Convention. 

Mr.  Brown  offered  the  following  substitute: 

Resolved,  That  a  committee  of  seven  be  elected 
by  this  Convention,  consisting  of  one  from  each 


Congressional  District,  a  majority  of  which  shall 
have  power  to  call  this  Convention  together  prior 
to  the  third  Monday  in  December,  as  public  exi- 
gencies may  require;  and  incase  any  vacancy 
occurs  in  said  committee,  the  survivor  or  sur- 
vivors shall  have  power  to  fill  it. 

Mr.  Hall  of  Buchanan,  offered  the  following 
amendment  to  the  substitute :  Strike  out  all  af- 
ter the  word  "require,"  and  insert  as  follows: 
In  case  any  vacancies  shall  occur,  by  resignation 
or  otherwise,  the  remaining  member  or  members 
of  said  commitee  shall  have  power  to  fill  the  same. 

Mr.  Dunn  offered  the  following  amendment  to 
the  original  resolution,  which  was  read  for  in- 
formation :  Fill  the  blank  with  the  word  "  sev- 
en," and  after  the  word  "  seven  "  the  words  in 
each  Congressional  District. 

Mr.  Brown  withdrew  his  substitute. 

The  amendment  of  Mr.  Dunn  to  the  original 
resolution  was  thereupon  adopted. 

Mr.  Hall,  of  Buchanan,  moved  to  further 
amend,  by  striking  out  all  after  the  word  "and," 
which  immediately  precedes  the  words  "  the  sur- 
vivors," and  inserting :  "  in  case  any  vacancies 
shall  occur,  by  resignation  or  otherwise,  the  re- 
maining members  or  member  of  said  committee 
shall  have  power  to  fill  the  same." 

The  amendment  was  adopted. 

Mr.  Redd  offered  the  following  amendment: 
Strike  out  the  words,  "at  such  place  as  they  may 
think  the  public  exigency  requires,"  and  insert 
the  words,  "  at  the  city  of  Jefferson,"  in  place 
thereof. 

Objected  to  on  the  ground  that  the  Legislature 
might  be  in  session  at  the  time  set  in  the  resolu- 
tion, and  lost— ayes  37;  noes  45. 

Mr.  Birch  offered  an  amendment,  which,  be- 
ing subsequently  modified  by  the  mover,  is  as  fol- 
lows :  Amend  by  adding  "and  if  the  said  com- 
mittee shall  be  of  opinion  hereafter  that  there  is 
no  longer  a  necessity  for  a  reassembling  of  the 
Convention,  and  shall  so  declare  by  proper  pub- 
lic communication,  then  the  Convention  shall  not 
reassemble  the  third  Monday  in  December,  but 
may  be  called  together  by  a  majority  of  said  com- 
mittee at  any  subsequent  period." 

Mr.  Wilson  offered  the  following  amendment 
to  the  amendment:  "If  it  be  the  request  of  a 
majority  of  all  the  members  of  the  Convention 
in  writing,  delivered  to  said  committee  prior  to 
the  third  Monday  in  December,  the  said  commit- 
tee shall  on  that  day  adjourn  this  Convention 

sine  die." 

Mr.  Shackelford,  of  Howard,  offered  the 
following  amendment,  which  was  read  for  in- 
formation: "Provided,  that  if  the  Convention 
does  not  assemble  on  the  third  Monday  in  De- 
cember, it  shall  stand  adjourned  sine  die." 

Upon  the  above  amendments,  a  running  debate 
ensued,  in  which  Messrs.  Welch,  Birch,  Wilson, 
Redd  and  others  participated,  and  pending  which 
the  Convention  adjourned. 


248 


EIGHTEENTH    DAY. 

St.  Louis,  March  21st,  1861. 

Mr.  President  in  the  Chair. 

Prayer  by  the  Chaplain. 

Journal  read  and  approved. 

Mr.  Henderson,  from  the  committee  to  whom 
was  referred  the  communication  from  the  Geor- 
gia Commissioner,  presented  the  following 

REPORT. 

Mr.  President:  Your  committee,  to  whom 
was  referred  the  communication  of  the  Honorable 
Luther  J.  Glenn,  who  appeared  before  the  Con- 
vention as  a  Commissioner  from  Georgia,  and 
having  presented  the  ordinance  of  secession  adopt- 
ed by  said  State,  was  pleased  to  "invite  the  co- 
operation of  Missouri  with  Georgia  and  the  other 
seceding  States  in  the  formation  of  a  Southern 
Confederacy,"  have  had  the  same  under  conside- 
ration, and  beg  leave  to  report  as  follows : 

The  Committee  sincerely  regret  that  the  com- 
mission under  which  Mr.  Glenn  was  accredited 
to  our  State,  was  limited  in  its  scope  to  a  mere  in- 
vitation to  withdraw  from  the  Government  of  our 
fathers  and  form  a  distinct  confederacy  with  the 
Gulf  States.  His  mission  seems  to  contemplate 
no  plan  of  reconciliation — no  measure  of  redress 
for  alleged  grievances,  which,  being  adopted, 
would  prove  satisfactory  to  Georgia.  Having 
chosen  secession  as  the  only  remedy  for  existing 
ills,  Georgia,  through  her  Commissioner,  suppo- 
ses that  similar  interests,  connected  with  the  exi- 
gency precipitated  upon  us  by  the  action  of  the 
cotton  States,  will  impel  Missouri  to  withdraw 
from  the  Union  and  cast  her  lot  with  them. 

The  reasons  assigned  by  Mr.  Glenn  for  this  ac- 
tion on  the  part  of  his  State  are :  First,  that  the 
laws  of  Congress  imposing  duties  on  imports 
have  been  so  framed  as  to  discriminate  very  inju- 
riously against  Southern  interests ;  Second,  that  a 
great  sectional  party,  chiefly  confined  to  the 
Northern  States  of  the  Union,  whose  leading  idea 
is  animosity  to  the  institution  of  negro  slavery, 
has  gradually  become  so  strong  as  to  obtain  the 
chief  executive  power  of  the  nation,  which  is 
regarded  as  a  present  insult  to  the  South;  and, 
Third,  that  the  ultimate  object  of  this  party  is 
the  total  extinction  of  slavery  in  the  States 
where  it  now  exists  by  law,  and  the  placing  upon 
terms  of  political  equality,  at  least,  the  white  and 
black  races;  and  to  prevent  evils  of  such  magni- 
tude, as  well  as  to  preserve  the  honor  and  safety 
of  the  South,  Georgia  and  some  of  her  sister 
States  have  deliberately  resolved  to  withdraw  from 
the  Union,  never  to  return. 

Your  Committee  trust  that  they  duly  appreci- 
ate the  gravity  of  the  communication  thus  made 
to  the  people  of  Missouri. 


Missouri  entered  the  Union  at  the  close  of  an 
angry  contest  on  the  subject  of  slavery.  Her 
geographical  position,  the  variety  of  the  branches 
of  industry  to  which  her  resources  point,  her 
past  growth  and  future  prospects,  combine  to  de- 
mand that  all  her  counsels  be  taken  in  the  spirit 
of  sobriety  and  conciliation. 

Your  Committee  waive  for  the  moment  the  con- 
sideration of  the  moral  aspect  of  what  they  con- 
ceive to  be  the  heresy  of  secession,  because  if  they 
entered,  in  the  first  instance,  upon  this  examina- 
tion, its  results  would  preclude  any  inquiry  into 
the  material  consequences  of  the  action  to  which 
Missouri  is  solicited. 

The  peculiar  position  of  our  State  is  different 
from  that  of  Georgia,  or  any  other  of  the  cotton- 
growing  States.  If  it  be  true,  as  represented,  that 
the  revenue  laws  of  the  country  operate  oppres- 
sively upon  them — and  this  objection  is  now  heard 
for  the  first  time  after  an  interval  of  nearly  thirty 
years — it  cannot  be  pretended  that  any  part  of 
this  particular  grievance  touches  Missouri. 

Acknowledging  as  we  do  the  power  of  Congress 
to  impose  such  duties  for  revenue  purposes  at 
least,  and  trusting  to  the  wisdom  and  justice  of 
that  body  for  impartial  legislation,  we  are  un- 
willing to  seek,  in  a  step  promising  nothing  but 
the  most  unequivocal  calamities,  a  refuge  from 
imaginary  evils. 

In  reference  to  the  more  important  matter  pre- 
sented as  a  reason  for  the  action  of  Georgia, 
your  committee  would  say,  that  Missouri  has 
watched,  with  painful  anxiety,  the  progress  of  a 
great  sectional  party  in  the  North,  based  upon 
the  exclusion  of  slavery  from  the  Territories, 
which  are  the  common  property  of  the  whole 
Union.  Doing  the  Republican  party  the  justice 
to  believe  that  it  means  to  carry  out  the  articles 
of  its  political  creed,  as  stated  in  its  platform  and 
indicated  by  its  recent  votes  in  Congress,  we  deem 
it  incorrect  to  declare  that  it  cherishes  any  pre- 
sent intention  to  interfere  with  slavery  in  the 
States  of  the  Union.  Any  such  attempt  would 
justly  arouse  the  highest  exasperation  in  every 
slaveholding  State;  but  it  is  considered  unwise  to 
go  out  of  our  way  to  denounce  hypothetically  a 
design  which,  so  far  from  being  threatened,  is 
disavowed  by  that  party. 

We  are  aware  that  individual  members  of  the 
Republican  party  have  at  times  enunciated  most 
dangerous  heresies,  and  that  some  of  its  extrem- 
ists have,  with  apparent  deliberation,  embodied  in 
the  form  of  resolutions,  and  published  to  the 
world,  sentiments  which  would  fnlly  authorize, 
if  regarded  as  the  views  of  the  whole  organiza- 
tion, the  condemnation  due  to  principles  at  war 
with  the  security  of  rights  of  property  in  nearly 
half  the  States  of  the  Union ;  but  we  must  guard 
ourselves  against  the  double  error  of  imagining 
that  all  the  bad  rhetoric  and  uncharitable  speech 
of  orators  whose  highest  aim  is  to  produce  a  sen- 


249 


sation,  are  to  be  taken  as  the  true  exponent  of 
the  sober  views  of  their  party,  and  that  language 
recklessly  used  by  a  party  seeking  to  obtain  pow- 
er is  a  faithful  index  of  the  conduct  it  will  pur- 
sue when  power  has  been  once  obtained. 

In  support  of  these  views,  your  Committee 
may  instance  the  adoption  of  a  constitutional 
amendment  by  the  requisite  two-thirds  vote  of 
each  branch  of  the  last  Congress,  after  the  Rep- 
resentatives from  seven  Southern  States  had 
withdrawn,  providing  against  all  interference  by 
Congress  with  the  institution  of  slavery,  as  it 
may  exist  in  any  State  of  the  Union— a  provis- 
ion irrevocable  without  the  consent  of  every  State, 
From  this  it  may  be  seen  that  the  extremists  at- 
tached to  the  Republican  party  have  so  far  been 
unable  to  control  it. 

In  proof  of  the  proposition  that  parties  are 
more  radical  in  the  acquisition  than  in  the  exer- 
cise of  power,  we  may  refer  to  the  recent  organi- 
zation of  three  several  territorial  governments, 
upon  the  principles  contained  in  the  compromise 
measures  of  1850 — and  afterwards  applied,  upon 
demand  of  the  South,  to  the  provisional  govern- 
ments of  Kansas  and  Nebraska. 

But  notwithstanding  these  evidences  denoting 
thus  far  a  proper  appreciation  of  the  rights  and 
wishes  of  the  people  of  the  South,  the  Honora- 
ble Commissioner  was  pleased  to  assure  us  that 
Georgia  had  lost  all  confidence  in  the  North. 
Such,  Mr.  President,  is  not  the  sentiment  of  Mis- 
souri. That  many  of  the  citizens  of  the  North, 
including  the  turbulent  demagogues,  who  incite 
to  treason,  and  their  deluded  followers  who  exe- 
cute their  teachings  by  invading  other  States, 
with  a  view  of  inaugurating  revolution  or  setting 
at  defiance,  by  forcible  resistance,  the  Federal 
laws,  on  their  own  soil,  have  forfeited  our  confi- 
dence, will  not  be  denied.  But  to  denounce  the 
innocent  with  the  guilty  and  charge  whole  com- 
munities with  the  crimes  or  bad  faith  of  a  few, 
does  not  accord  with  the  moral  or  political  ethics 
of  Missourians. 

It  is  true  that  some  of  the  Northern  States  have 
enacted  laws,  the  provisions  of  which  seem  de- 
signed to  impede  the  prompt  and  faithful  execu- 
tion of  the  Fugitive  Slave  Law,  but  such  enact- 
ments are  void.  They  disgrace  the  statute  books 
on  which  they  appear,  and  serve  no  other  purpose 
than  to  weaken  the  fraternal  ties  that  should  bind 
together  the  people  of  different  sections  of  the 
Union.  These  enactments  are  fast  disappearing; 
and  the  hope  may  be  indulged  that,  in  the  course 
of  a  few  months,  this  source  of  irritation  will  be 
permanently  removed. 

So  far  then  from  having  lost  all  confidence  in 
the  North,  Missouri  is  assured,  by  the  history  of 
the  past,  that  every  right  she  may  constitutional- 
ly claim  will  be  accorded  to  her.  Let  the  pas- 
sions of  the  day,  engendered  by  political  conflict, 
subside  and  the  ultra  dogmas  of  party  leaders 


will  be  discarded.  Let  the  American  mind  once 
more  be  directed  to  the  importance  of  perpetuat- 
ing the  blessings  of  a  good  government,  instead 
of  indulging  vain  hopes  of  establishing  a  better 
one,  at  the  close  of  the  most  dangerous  and  crimi- 
nal revolutions,  and  then  the  peace  of  the  country 
will  have  been  restored. 

We  are  not  advised  that  concessions  demanded 
by  the  Southern  people,  on  the  subject  of  slavery, 
have  heretofore  been  refused  by  those  of  the 
North.  No  Federal  legislation,  discriminating 
against  the  institution,  has  ever  been  imposed 
upon  the  South  by  the  sectional  power  of  the 
North.  The  ordinance  of  1787,  prohibiting  sla- 
very in  the  Northwest  territory,  ceded  to  the 
General  Government  by  the  State  of  Virginia, 
was  proposed  and  advocated  by  one  of  the  most 
distinguished  sons  of  the  "  Old  Dominion."  The 
proposition  was  seconded  and  supported  by 
Southern  men,  and,  though  the  result  of  the 
measure  was  the  exclusion  of  slavery  from  the 
soil  of  five  large  States  of  the  Union,  yet  the 
South  should  not  be  so  unjust  as  now  to  complain 
of  the  deed. 

The  Missouri  compromise  was  agreed  upon  by 
the  representatives  of  both  sections  of  the 
country,  and  neither  should  now  reproach  the 
other.  It  was  proposed  by  a  Southern  man,  re- 
ceived the  assent  of  the  South,  and  acquiesced  in 
by  the  people  of  the  nation. 

And  though,  it  may  be  said,  the  compact  was 
made  in  ignorance  of  the  law,  as  recently  de- 
clared by  the  Supreme  Court,  the  people  of  the 
South  will  scarcely  now  sacrifice  their  high  sense 
of  honor,  so  long  claimed  as  a  leading  charac- 
teristic, in  eager  and  unnatural  desire  to  find 
causes  of  quarrel  with  their  brethren  of  the 
North. 

At  a  subsequent  period  the  South  demanded  a 
repeal  of  the  Missouri  Compromise  line,  and  the 
adoption  of  the  principle  of  non-intervention  upon 
the  subject  of  slavery  in  the  territories.  The  de- 
mand was  acceded  to,  and  territorial  governments 
established  in  accordance  with  their  wishes.  That 
portion  of  the  territory,  once  covered  by  the  re- 
striction of  1820,  was  thus  opened  to  the  introduc- 
tion of  slavery,  and  now,  for  the  first  time  since 
the  organization  of  the  Federal  Government  has 
slavery  become  lawful  upon  every  part  of  the 
public  domain.  Georgia  and  Missouri  united  in 
this  appeal  to  the  patriotism  and  justice  of  the 
North. 

The  concession  was  made,  and  Missouri  would 
be  false  to  every  principle  of  honor  should  she 
find  in  the  act  a  pretext  for  the  charge  of  broken 
faith. 

The  operation  of  this  principle  having  become 
distasteful  to  some  of  our  Southern  friends,  it 
was  thought  by  them  advisable  to  make  yet  an- 
other demand  upon  the  people  of  the  North.  The 
doctrine  of  Congressional  protection  of  slavery  in 


250 


the  Territories  was  urged  as  a  substitute  for  that 
of  popular  sovereignty,  so  recently  adopted  at 
their  own  instance  and  request.  The  demand, 
however,  is  only  made  in  a  political  convention, 
and  admitted,  by  the  parties  urging  it,  to  be  an 
unnecessary  and  impracticable  abstraction.  When 
attempted  to  be  engrafted  upon  the  legislation  of 
the  country,  it  is  repudiated  by  nearly  the  entire 
South,  and  even  by  Georgia  herself.  Your  com- 
mittee are  by  no  means  satisfied  that  even  this  re- 
quest would  be  refused  by  a  large  proportion  of 
the  Northern  people,  were  it  necessary  to  preserve 
the  Union,  or  secure  the  rights  of  their  brethren. 
But,  until  it  shall  be  acknowledged  as  a  vital  and 
living  principle  by  the  South,  and  refused  by  the 
North,  Missouri  will  be  slow  even  to  complain  of 
injustice,  much  less  to  enter  into  any  schemes  for 
the  destruction  of  the  Government. 

Missouri  is  not  yet  ready  to  abandon  the  ex- 
periment of  free  government.  She  has  not  lost 
all  confidence  in  the  people  of  any  section  of  the 
nation,  because  the  past  furnishes  assurance  to 
the  contrary;  the  present  is  cheered  by  her  un- 
shaken faith  in  the  capacity  of  man  to  govern 
himself— and  the  future  invites  to  peace  and  con- 
tinued Union,  for  the  prosperity  of  all. 

If  evils  exist  under  the  Constitution  and  laws, 
as  they  are,  let  the  proper  appeal  be  addressed  to 
the  American  heart,  both  North  and  South,  and 
these  evils  will  be  removed.  If,  in  the  heat  of 
partizan  rancor,  the  expressions  or  deeds  of  the 
vicious  shall  point  to  future  aggressions,  the  pat- 
riotism of  the  masses  needs  only  to  be  invoked 
for  new  guarantees  against  anticipated  wrong. 

From  what  has  been  already  said,  it  will  be 
seen  that  the  views  of  Georgia,  as  expressed  by 
her  Commissioner  and  those  of  your  Committee, 
in  reference  to  the  policy  to  be  pursued  by  the 
Southern  States  in  the  present  emergency,  are 
essentially  different.  "We  believe  that  Missouri 
yet  relies  upon  the  justice  of  the  American  peo- 
ple, whilst  Georgia  seems  to  despair.  The  one 
recognizes  friends  in  the  North,  whose  lives,  if 
necessary,  will  be  devoted  to  her  defence;  the 
other,  regarding  them  as  unworthy  of  her  confi- 
dence, spurns  their  friendship,  and  defies  their 
enmity.  Missouri  looks  to  the  Federal  Constitu- 
tion to  protect  the  rights  of  her  citizens,  whilst 
Georgia  unnecessarily  rushes  into  revolution  and 
hazards  all  upon  a  single  issue.  Georgia,  seem- 
ing to  regard  the  Union  as  the  source  of  imagina- 
ry ills,  adopts  secession  as  a  remedy ;  Missouri, 
feeling  that  she  is  indebted  to  the  Union  for  the 
prosperity  of  her  citizens,  her  power  and  wealth 
as  a  State,  yet  clings  to  it  with  the  patriotic  devo- 
tion of  earlier  days. 

Your  committee,  so  far,  have  confined  them- 
selves to  an  examination  of  the  causes  alleged 
for  the  revolution  in  the  Southern  States,  and  the 
apparent  want  of  necessity  for  so  extraordinary 
a  movement   at  the'  present  time.    Indeed,  so 


rapid  and  ill-advised  has  this  action  been,  that  it 
seems  rather  the  execution  of  meditated  conspi- 
racy against  the  Government  by  restless  and  un- 
easy demagogues,  than  the  slow  and  determined 
movement  of  a  reflecting  people.  We  see  many  of 
the  dangerous  men  who  controlled  the  nullifica- 
tion plot  of  South  Carolina  in  1832,  the  prominent 
actors  in  the  present  desperate  experiment  against 
the  peace  and  happiness  of  the  country.  Feel- 
ing, as  we  do,  the  total  inadequacy  of  the  causes 
presented  for  this  ruinous  policy,  your  committee 
will  be  excused  in  the  expression  of  some  doubt 
as  to  the  deliberation  and  wisdom  with  which  the 
honorable  Commissioner  was  pleased  to  assure  us 
Georgia  had  acted  in  the  premises.  And  in  this 
connection  we  will  be  further  excused  for  com- 
mending to  the  serious  consideration  of  the  good 
citizens  of  Georgia,  and  other  seceding  States, 
who  may  for  the  moment  have  been  seduced 
from  the  paths  of  safety  by  the  artful  schemes  of 
bad  men,  the  following  memorable  words  from 
one  whose  patriotism  will  not  be  doubted,  and 
whose  unerring  sagacity  is  being  daily  verified  in 
the  history  of  the  Republic. 

"  Washington,  May  1,  1833. 

"Mi  Dear  Sir:  ******  I  have 
had  a  laborious  task  here;  but  nullification  is 
dead,  and  its  actors  and  courtiers  will  only  be  re- 
membered by  the  people  to  be  execrated  for  their 
wicked  designs  to  sever  and  destroy  the  only  good 
Government  on  the  globe,  and  that  prosperity 
and  happiness  we  enjoy  over  every  portion  of  the 
world.  Hainan's  gallows  ought  to  be  the  fate  of 
all  such  ambitious  men,  who  would  involve  their 
country  in  civil  war,  and  all  the  evils  in  its  train, 
that  they  might  reign,  and  ride  on  its  whirlwind 
and  direct  the  storm.  The  free  people  of  these 
United  States  have  spoken,  and  consigned  these 
wicked  demagogues  to  their  proper  doom.  Take 
care  of  your  nullifiers ;  you  have  them  among 
you;  let  them  meet  with  the  indignant  frowns  of 
every  man  who  loves  his  country.  The  tariff,  it 
is  now  known,  was  a  mere  pretext.  The  next 
pretext  will  be  the  negro  or  slavery  question. 
"ANDREW  JACKSON. 

"Rev.  Andrew  J.  Crawford/' 

The  Commissioner  was  pleased  to  invoke  the 
identity  of  interests  and  feeling  between  the  peo- 
ple of  Georgia  and  Missouri,  as  a  reason  that  we 
should  abandon  the  Government  of  our  fathers, 
and  take  our  position  with  the  seceding  States. 
It  will  be  borne  in  mind  that  this  proposition  was 
urged,  not  with  a  view  of  securing  such  guaran- 
ties as  might  ultimately  lead  to  a  reunion  of  the 
States,  and  the  establishment  of  fraternal  peace, 
but  for  the  purpose  of  constructing  permanently 
a  separate  and  distinct  confederacy. 

If  the  union  of  these  two  great  States,  under 
the  same  government — and  we  admit  the  fact — 
be  so  desirable  to  Georgia,  we  will  be  pardoned 


251 


in  the  expression  of  astonishment  that  she  saw 
fit  to  dissolve  that  connection,  which  had  been 
peaceful  and  happy  for  the  last  forty  years,  with- 
out consulting  the  interests  or  wishes  of  Missouri. 
It  may  not  be  intended,  but  the  inference  is  forc- 
ed upon  us,  that  longer  to  enjoy  the  beneficial  re- 
sults to  flow  from  union  with  our  revolting  sis- 
ters, we  must  surrender  our  own  convictions  of 
duty  and  follow  the  imperative  behests  of  others. 
Missouri  must  resign  her  place  in  the  present  gal- 
axy of  States,  where  the  lustre  and  brilliancy  of 
each  but  add  harmony  and  beauty  to  the  whole, 
and  accept  such  position  as  may  be  assigned  her 
in  the  new  constellation,  whose  light,  we  fear, 
may  never  penetrate  beyond  the  southern  skies. 

The  importance  of  the  accession  of  Missouri  to 
any  confederacy  formed  upon  the  ruins  of  the 
present  Union  will  be  readily  granted ;  but,  be- 
fore accepting  any  such  invitation  without  any 
guaranty  for  the  future,  it  behooves  us  now  to 
examine  the  character  of  the  remedy  proposed, 
and  also  its  inevitable  consequences  upon  the 
people  of  Missouri.  Should  the  government  be- 
come destructive  of  the  ends  for  which  it  was  in- 
stituted, and  oppression  become  the  established 
rule  of  its  action,  we  presume  that  none  will  deny 
the  revolutionary  right  of  redress.  This,  how- 
ever, is  a  remedy  outside  of  the  provisions  of  the 
Federal  Constitution  and  one  that  must  necessa- 
rily address  itself  to  the  moral  sense  of  the  civil- 
ized world.  It  depends  for  its  success  upon  deep 
convictions  of  wrong  by  citizens  of  the  revolting 
district,  claiming,  when  justifiable,  the  encour- 
agement and  sympathy  of  other  nations.  It  is 
the  last  remedy  of  injured  man  to  obtain  in  vio- 
lence and  bloodshed,  if  need  be,  the  establish- 
ment of  an  incontesiible  right.  It  presumes  the 
total  inefficiency  of  his  government  to  redress  his 
wrongs.  It  supposes  that  all  the  efforts  of  peace 
have  been  exhausted,  and  that  present  evils  are 
beyond  endurance. 

If  it  be  true  "  that  governments  long  estab- 
lished should  not  be  changed  for  light  and  tran- 
sient causes,"  it  occurs  to  your  Committee  that  a 
proper  appreciation  of  this  truth  will  at  once  dis- 
pel all  ideas  of  present  revolution. 

Secession,  on  the  other  hand,  is  claimed  as  a 
right  resulting  from  the  nature  of  our  Govern- 
ment; that  the  Constitution  is  a  mere  compact 
between  the  States,  not  subject  even  to  the  ordi- 
nary rules  governing  contracts ;  that  it  is  a  con- 
federation of  States,  not  a  government  of  the 
people. 

It  will  be  observed  that  no  attempt  of  a  serious 
character  has  ever  been  made  to  overthrow  the 
Government  without  adopting  this  theory  as  the 
best  means  to  accomplish  the  end.  The  reason 
is  obvious ;  for  although  it  is  declared  in  the  in- 
strument itself  that  "  this  Constitution  and  the 
laws  of  the  United  States  which  shall  be  made  in 
pursuance  thereof,  and  all  treaties  made  under 


the  authority  of  the  United  States,  shall  be  the 
supreme  law  of  the  land;  and  the  Judges  in  ev- 
ery State  shall  be  bound  thereby,  anything  in  the 
Constitution  or  laws  of  any  State  to  the  contrary 
notwithstanding,"  this  doctrine  interposes  State 
authority  between  the  rebellious  citizen  and  the 
consequences  of  his  crime.  Hence  the  delegates 
from  the  five  New  England  States  who  met  at 
Hartford,  Connecticut,  in  1814,  in  response  to  the 
call  of  the  Massachusetts  Legislature,  saying  "  it 
was  expedient  to  lay  the  foundation  for  a  radical 
reform  in  the  national  compact,  and  devise  some 
mode  of  defense  suitable  to  those  States,  the  af- 
finities of  whose  interests  are  closest,  and  whose 
intercourse  are  most  frequent,"  after  enumerat- 
ing their  grievances  against  the  Government,  de- 
clare that  "in  cases  of  deliberate,  dangerous  and 
palpable  infractions  of  the  Constitution,  affecting 
the  sovereignty  of  a  State  and  the  liberties  of  the 
people,  it  is  not  only  the  right  but  the  duty  of 
such  a  State  to  interpose  its  authority  for  protec- 
tion, in  the  manner  best  calculated  to  secure  that 
end.  When  emergencies  occur,  which  are  either 
beyond  the  reach  of  the  judicial  tribunals,  or  too 
pressing  to  admit  of  the  delay  incident  to  their 
forms,  States  which  have  no  common  umpire 
must  be  their  own  judges  and  execute  their  own 
decisions." 

Looking  forward  to  the  ultimate  dissolution  of 
the  Union  and  the  erection  of  a  Northern  Con- 
federacy, as  one  of  the  means  to  secure  that  end, 
they  recommended  amendments  to  the  Constitu- 
tion, which  they  must  have  known  would  not  be 
adopted.  Their  rejection,  it  was  hoped,  no  doubt, 
would  "fire  the  Northern  mind  and  precipitate" 
the  New  England  States  "into  a  revolution." 
Seeing  the  enormity  of  their  proceedings  and  that 
merited  punishment  would  likely  be  visited  upon 
them  by  the  Government,  they,  too,  entered  their 
solemn  protest  against  coercion,  and  declared  "if 
the  Union  be  destined  to  dissolution  by  reason  of 
the  multiplied  abuses  of  bad  administration,  it 
should  be,  if  possible,  the  work  of  peaceable 
times  and  deliberate  consent,"  and  that  "a  sepa- 
tion  by  equitable  arrangement  will  be  preferable 
to  an  alliance  by  constraint  among  nominal 
friends  but  real  enemies." 

"We  pause  but  to  remark  that  the  amendments 
to  the  Constitution  proposed  by  this  sectional 
convention  were  never  adopted,  the  New  Eng- 
land States  remained  in  the  Union,  peace  and 
prosperity  again  blessed  the  land,  and  the  con- 
spirators, abhorred  and  shunned  by  men,  silently 
passed  along  to  a  grave  of  infamy. 

At  a  subsequent  period  a  movement  somewhat 
similar  in  its  nature  was  inaugurated  in  some  of 
the  Southern  States,  and  your  Committee  hope 
that  the  allusion  will  give  no  offense  to  Georgia. 
The  grievance  complained  of  was  the  tariff  act  of 
1828.  South  Carolina  took  the  incipient  step  and 
declared  the  Constitution  to  be  a  compact  between 


252 


States  as  independent  sovereignties,  and  not  a 
government  of  the  people— that  the  Federal  Gov- 
ernment was  responsible  to  the  State  Legislatures, 
when  it  assumed  powers  not  conferred — that  not- 
witstanding  a  tribunal  was  appointed  under  the 
Constitution  to  decide  controversies  where  the 
United  States  was  a  party,  there  were  some  ques- 
tions that  must  occur  between  the  Government 
and  the  States,  which  it  would  be  unsafe  to  sub- 
mit to  any  judicial  tribunal,  and  finally,  that  the 
State  had  a  right  to  judge  for  itself  as  to  infrac- 
tions of  the  Constitution. 

Alabama,  Virginia  and  Georgia  having  yielded 
assent  to  this  exposition  of  the  principles  of  the 
Government,  a  Convention  was  assembled  in 
South  Carolina,  which  at  once  declared  the  ob- 
noxious law  to  be  null  and  void,  and  of  no  bind- 
ing force  upon  the  citizens  of  that  State.  It  was 
further  resolved,  that  in  case  of  an  attempt  by  the 
General  Government  to  enforce  the  tariff  laws  of 
1828  or  1832,  the  Union  was  to  be  dissolved,  and 
a  Convention  called  to  form  an  independent  gov- 
ernment of  that  State;  and  in  order  that  the  nulli- 
fication might  be  thorough  and  complete,  it  was 
provided,  that  no  appeal  should  be  permitted  to 
the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States,  in  any 
question  concerning  the  validity  of  the  ordinance 
or  of  the  laws  that  might  be  passed  by  the  Legis- 
lature to  give  it  effect.  In  pursuance  of  this 
scheme,  the  Governor  was  authorized  by  the  Leg- 
islature, to  call  on  the  militia  of  the  State  to  resist 
the  enforcement  of  the  Federal  laws ;  arms  and 
munitions  of  war  were  placed  at  his  disposal,  and 
the  State  judiciary  was  to  be  exonerated  from 
their  oaths  to  support  the  Federal  Constitution. 
Treason  to  the  Union  became  sanctified  with  the 
name  of  patriotism,  and  its  hideous  deformity 
was  attempted  to  be  shielded  by  the  mantle  of 
State  Sovereignty. 

At  this  juncture  appeared  the  proclamation  of 
Jackson,  explaining  the  nature  of  the  American 
Government,  denying  the  pretended  right  of  sov- 
ereignty and  claiming  the  supremacy  of  the  Fed- 
eral Constitution.  A  military  force  was  ordered 
to  assemble  at  Charleston,  and  a  sloop-of-war  was 
dispatched  to  the  same  point,  to  protect  the  Fed- 
eral officers  in  the  discharge  of  their  duties.  False 
theories  were  exploded;  the  tide  of  revolution 
that  threatened  to  engulf  the  entire  South  was 
checked;  the  passions  of  the  moment  subsi- 
ded; the  public  mind  that  had  been  maddened  by 
the  unlicensed  declamation  of  the  demagogue, 
was  remitted  to  calm  reflection,  and  soon  the 
whole  country  responded  to  the  patriotic  senti- 
ment of  the  iron-nerved  statesman :  "  Our  Fed- 
eral Union— it  must  be  preserved." 

We  pause  but  to  remark,  that  the  revenues 
were  collected,  peace  was  preserved,  the  country 
was  saved,  and  a  new  batch  of  restless  men  con- 
signed to  oblivion  by  an  indignant  people.  Oth- 
er instances  might  be  given  in  which  false  con- 


structions of  the  Constitution  have  been  urged, 
with  the  obvious  intention  ultimately  to  destroy 
it;  but  your  Committee  feel  assured  that  the  in- 
strument itself,  when  viewed  in  connection  with 
the  history  of  its  adoption,  cannot  be  so  tortured 
as  to  sanction  the  right  of  secession.  It  is  an  in- 
strument of  delegated  powers,  granted  by  "the 
people  of  the  United  States,  in  order  to  form  a 
more  perfect  Union,  establish  justice,  insure  do- 
mestic tranquility,  provide  for  the  common  de- 
fense, promote  the  general  welfare,  and  secure 
the  blessings  of  liberty  to  themselves  and  their 
posterity." 

All  legislative  powers  granted  in  the  Consti- 
tution are  vested  in  a  Congress,  composed  of  a 
Senate  and  House  of  Representatives.  After  an 
express  enumeration  of  grants  of  power  that  may 
be  exercised  by  that  body,  it  is  further  provided, 
that  Congress  shall  have  power  "to  make  all  laws 
which  shall  be  necessary  and  proper  for  carrying 
into  execution  the  foregoing  powers,  and  all  oth- 
er powers  vested  by  this  Constitution  in  the  Gov- 
ernment of  the  United  States  or  in  any  depart- 
ment or  officer  thereof." 

It  is  then  provided,  that  "the  laws  of  the  United 
States,  which  shall  bemadein  pusuance"  of  these 
grants  of  power,  "shall  be  the  supreme  law  of 
the  land,  and  the  Judges  in  every  State,"  in  their 
administration  of  justice,  "shall  be  bound  there- 
by," notwithstanding  the  Constitution  and  laws 
of  their  own  State  may  be  to  the  contrary. 

"The  powers  not  delegated  to  the  United 
States  by  the  Constitution,  nor  prohibited  by  it 
to  the  States,  are  reserved  to  the  States  respect- 
ively, or  to  the  people."  If  the  framers  of  the 
Constitution  had  stopped  at  this  point  and  fur- 
nished us  no  tribunal,  before  which  the  humblest 
citizen  may  obtain  redress,  when  the  limitations 
of  the  instrument  shall  be  exceeded  by  the  law- 
making power,  the  pretext  for  the  assumed 
right  would  bo  infinitely  more  plausible.  But 
such  is  not  the  case.  The  powers  delegated,  hav- 
ing been  granted  by  the  people  for  purposes  of 
permanent  and  perpetual  government,  cannot  be 
withdrawn  by  any  State  or  any  number  of  States, 
except  in  the  mode  indicated  in  the  Constitution 
itself.  These  grants  of  power  were  at  the  time 
supposed  to  be  essential  to  the  common  good; 
that  being  of  a  general  nature,  it  were  best  to 
confer  their  exercise  upon  a  National  Govern- 
ment. 

This  having  been  done,  the  several  States  can- 
not be  regarded  as  perfect  sovereignties.  The 
people  of  the  whole  Union  having  surrendered  to 
the  General  Government  a  portion  of  their  pow- 
ers—which are  material  attributes  of  sovereign- 
ty—and having  declared  that  government  to  be 
the  supreme  law  of  the  land,  it  cannot  be  serious- 
ly urged  that  any  number  of  the  people  organiz- 
ing a  State  government,  may  confer  upon  it  pow- 
ers with  which  they  have  already  parted. 


253 


But,  in  order  to  protect  the  people  of  each  and 
every  State  against  encroachment  by  the  Federal 
authority;  to  prevent  interference  by  the  States 
with  powers  delegated  to  the  Federal  Government, 
and  to  preserve  to  each  its  appropriate  rights  for 
all  time  to  come,  a  wise  provision  was  made, 
which  so  far,  it  must  be  admitted,  has  answered 
all  the  ends  for  which  it  was  adopted. 

Controversies  must  necessarily  spring  up  in  the 
administration  of  governments  so  complicated  in  , 
their  nature,  for  each  may  be  said  to  be  sovereign 
within  its  appropriate  sphere,  and  in  order  that  a 
peaceable  solution  may  be  had  in  every  possible 
case  that  can  arise,  our  forefathers  provided  an 
arbiter  in  the  Judiciary  department  of  the  Gov- 
ernment; its  power  extending  "to  all  cases  inlaw 
and  equity  arising  under  this  Constitution,  the 
laws  of  the  United  States,  and  treaties  made,  or 
which  shall  be  made,  under  their  authority;"  "to 
controversies  to  which  the  United  States  shall  be 
a  party;  to  controversies  between  two  or  more 
States;  between  a  State  and  citizens  of  another 
State;  between  citizens  of  different  States;  be- 
tween citizens  of  the  same  State,  claiming  lands 
under  grants  of  different  States,  and  between  a 
State  or  citizens  thereof  and  foreign  States,  citi- 
zens or  subjects." 

This,  in  connection  with  the  other  provisions  of 
the  Constitution  referred  to  renders  our  Govern- 
ment, in  the  judgment  of  your  Committee,  the 
best  ever  established  by  man.  Whether  Georgia 
and  other  seceding  States  may  be  able  to  devise 
a  better,  the  future  alone  can  determine. 

If  we  were  disposed  further  to  demonstrate  the 
heterodoxy  of  secession  as  a  right  deducible  from 
the  Constitution,  we  might  refer  to  other  plain 
provisions  of  that  instrument,  and  ask  pertinent 
questions  as  to  the  reason  of  their  adoption,  and 
the  consequences  flowing  from  an  admission  of 
the  right. 

Why  grant  the  power  "  to  borrow  money  on 
the  credit  of  the  United  States,"  if  the  State,  per- 
haps receiving  the  benefit  of  the  fund,  can  with- 
draw and  absolve  her  citizens  from  all  obligation 
to  pay?  Why  the  power  "to  lay  and  collect 
taxes,  duties,  imposts,  and  excises,  to  pay  the 
debts  and  provide  for  the  common  defense  and 
general  welfare  of  the  United  States,"  if  a  simple 
ordinance  of  secession  excuses  the  citizen  and 
nullifies  the  provision  for  calling  "  forth  the  mi- 
litia to  execute  the  laws  of  the  Union?"  Why  the 
power  "to  declare  war,"  if,  in  the  midst  of  hos- 
tilities, the  State  whose  representatives  may  have 
voted  for  the  declaration,  but  now  wearied  of  its 
calamities,  may  seek  peace  in  secession,  and  leave 
the  Government  to  struggle  with  its  dangers  and 
its  burdens?  Why  declare  that  "  no  State  shall 
enter  into  any  treaty,  alliance  or  confederation;" 
that  "  no  State  shall  enter  into  any  agreement  or 
compact  with  another  State,  or  with  a  foreign 


power,"  if  all  these  things  can  be  done  in  perfect 
accordance  with  the  Constitution? 

We  might  also  refer  to  the  acquisition  of  Flor- 
ida, the  purchase  of  Louisiana,  the  payment  of 
the  Texas  debt,  and  the  boasted  "indemnity  for 
the  past  and  security  for  the  future,"  supposed  to 
be  realized  at  the  close  of  the  war  with  Mexico, 
all  of  which  were  mere  "promises  to  the  ear,"  if 
the  doctrine  of  secession  be  true. 

But  were  your  Committee  disposed  to  abandon 
the  dictates  of  patriotism  and  forget  for  the  mo- 
ment their  loyalty  to  the  Constitution  of  the  nation, 
a  proper  regard  for  the  local  interests  of  our  own 
State  would  demand  at  our  hands  an  examination 
of  the  probable  consequences  of  the  action  pro- 
posed. We  are  told  by  the  Commissioner  that 
Georgia  acted  for  herself  and  adopted  such  course 
as  she  deemed  best  calculated  to  protect  her  honor 
and  secure  the  welfare  of  her  citizens. 

If  it  be  true  that  each  State  possesses  the 
right  to  judge  for  itself,  and  its  own  peculiar  in- 
terests should  control  its  policy,  in  emergencies 
like  the  present,  and  that  Georgia,  in  the  exer- 
cise of  that  right,  has  acted  with  an  eye  single  to 
her  own  welfare,  it  may  be  well  doubted  whether 
a  similar  instinct  of  self-preservation  on  our  part 
should  be  influenced  by  the  conduct  of  others. 

It  is  urged  that  the  Northern  mind  has  become 
so  corrupted  by  the  anti-slavery  mania  of  the 
day,  as  to  render  this  species  of  property  insecure. 
If  secession  could  remove  our  State  beyond  the 
reach  of  this  morbid  sentiment,  or  build  moun- 
tains and  seas  upon  our  borders,  to  arrest  the  op- 
eration of  its  influence,  the  remedy  proposed 
might  at  least  be  regarded  in  a  more  favorable 
light.  Our  State  is  surrounded  by  territory  which, 
in  the  event  of  separation,  will  pass  under  the  ju- 
risdiction of  a  foreign  government;  and  if  it  be 
once  admitted  that  fraternal  regard  and  a  sense 
of  mutual  dependence,  cemented  by  the  associa- 
tions of  the  past  and  the  hopes  of  the  future,  are 
now  insufficient  to  check  the  insubordinate  citi- 
zens of  adjacent  States,  what  limit  to  out- 
rage may  be  anticipated  when  these  restraints  are 
removed. 

Mr.  Welch.  I  move  to  dispense  with  the  fur- 
ther reading  of  the  report,  and  that  it  be  made 
the  special  order  for  the  third  Monday  in  Decem- 
ber, 1861,  and  on  that  motion  I  call  the  ayes  and 
noes. 

Mr.  Breckinridge.  It  strikes  me  that  would 
hardly  be  an  act  of  coutesy  to  the  gentleman 
from  Pike,  (Mr.  Henderson.)  I  trust  he  may  be 
allowed  at  least  to  finish  the  reading  of  his  re- 
port. 

Mr.  Sheeley.    Is  the  question  susceptible  of 
divison?    I  desire  as  an  act  of  courtesy  that  the 
|  report  be  read  through,  but  I  am  in  favor  of  post- 
poning until  the  third  Monday  in  December. 

Mr.  Welch.  At  the  request  of  gentlemen,  I 
defer  my  motion  until  the  report  has  been  read. 


254 


Mr.  Henderson  then  continued: 

Supposing  that  a  peaceable  separation  could  be 
accomplished,  new  and  important  questions 
would  be  precipitated  upon  us.  The  present 
elements  of  our  prosperity  as  one  people  would 
become  the  sources  of  bitter  strife.  What  gives 
power  as  a  nation  would  bring  about  conflicts  be- 
tween its  different  societies,  as  independent 
sovereignties,  that  must  soon  terminate  in  the 
destruction  of  the  weaker  and  the  comparative 
ruin  of  the  stronger.  The  great  rivers  ©f  our 
country,  now  floating  the  commerce  of  a  happy 
people,  would  daily  present  questions  for  angry 
controversy,  between  rival  Kepublics.  There  be- 
ing no  common  arbiter  for  the  adjustment  of 
these  exciting  differences,  an  appeal  to  the  sword 
will  be  made  to  settle  them.  Treaties  will  likely 
fail  to  secure  what  now  is  claimed  as  a  consti- 
tutional right.  In  this  view  of  the  case,  Missouri 
having  withdrawn  from  the  Union,  to  obtain 
greater  security  in  negro  property,  would  sudden- 
ly find  herself  surrounded  by  territory  affording 
for  the  fugitive  slave  an  asylum  as  safe  as  the 
Canadian  provinces.  Secession  does  not  com- 
mend itself  to  Missouri  as  a  proper  solution  of  the 
problem  involved  in  political  strife  upon  the  ter- 
ritorial question. 

It  has  been  already  remarked  that  the  idea  of 
excluding  slavery  from  the  Territories,  as  enter- 
tained by  the  Republican  party,  is  in  conflict  with 
an  unreversed  decision  of  the  Supreme  Court  of 
the  United  States,  and  was  wholly  abandoned  by 
that  party  in  the  recent  organization  of  terri- 
torial governments.  The  right  to  carry  slaves 
into  all  the  public  domain  is  to-day  clear  and  un- 
disputed, and  if  the  soil  and  climate  be  such  as 
to  forbid  the  permanent  existence  of  the  institu- 
tion therein,  secession  will  scarcely  be  regarded 
by  Missouri  as  a  remedy  for  the  supposed 
grievance. 

Again  we  may  ask  if  the  Southern  States  with- 
draw from  the  government,  will  it  not  be  argued 
that  they  have  abandoned  all  interest  in  the  pub- 
lic property?  "We  waive  the  question  of  right, 
for  evidently  it  resolves  itself  into  one  of  power, 
and  it  is  at  least  certain  that  such  will  be  the 
view  of  those  from  whom  we  may  have  separat- 
ed. This  of  itself  will  inaugurate  a  contest  of 
the  most  violent  character,  and  whether  the  in- 
stitution of  slavery  may  be  safely  planted  upon 
any  soil  in  the  midst  of  hostilities,  originating 
from  these  causes,  is  a  question  deserving  our 
serious  consideration. 

In  conclusion,  Mr.  President,  your  Committee 
desire  to  express  the  hope  that  the  errors  of  the 
day,  both  North  and  South,  will  soon  be  aban- 
doned, that  fraternal  love  will  be  restored  by  ad- 
justment, honorable  alike  to  every  section,  and 
that  Georgia  and  Missouri  may  continue  in  the 
Union  of  our  fathers,  to  bless  and  to  be  blessed, 
in  the  great  family  of  States. 


In  every  point  of  view  in  which  we  have  been 
able  to  examine  the  communication  soliciting  our 
withdrawal  from  the  Union,  whether  viewed  as  a 
Constitutional  right,  a  remedy  for  existing  evils, 
or  a  preventive  of  anticipated  wrongs,  we  find  it 
in  conflict  with  our  allegiance  to  a  good  Govern- 
ment, and  wholly  inefficient  to  accomplish  the 
ends  designed. 

We  therefore  recommend  to  the  Convention  the 
adoption  of  the  following  resolutions : 

1st.  That  the  communication  made  to  the  Con- 
vention by  the  Hon.  Luther  J.  Glenn,  as  a  Commis- 
sioner from  the  State  of  Georgia,  so  far  as  it  as- 
serts the  constitutional  right  of  secession  meets 
with  our  disapproval. 

2d.  That  whilst  we  reprobate,  in  common  with 
Georgia,  the  violation  of  constitutional  duty  by 
Northern  fanatics,  we  cannot  approve  the  seces- 
sion of  Georgia  and  her  sister  States,  as  a  mea- 
sure likely  to  prove  beneficial  either  to  us  or  to 
themselves. 

3d.  That  in  our  opinion  the  dissolution  of  the 
Union  would  be  ruinous  to  the  best  interests  of 
Missouri,  hence  no  efforts  should  be  spared  on 
her  part  to  secure  its  continued  blessings  to  her 
people,  and  she  will  labor  for  an  adjustment  of 
all  existing  differences,  on  such  a  basis  as  will  be 
compatible  with  the  interest  and  the  honor  of  all 
the  State  s. 

4th.  That  this  Convention  exhorts  Georgia  and 
the  other  seceding  States  to  desist  from  the  revo- 
lutionary measures  commenced  by  them,  and 
unite  their  voice  with  ours  in  restoring  peace  and 
cementing  the  union  of  our  fathers. 

5th.  Resolved,  That  the  President  of  this  Con- 
vention transmit  a  copy  of  these  resolutions,  to- 
gether with  a  copy  of  those  concerning  our  Fed- 
eral Relations  adopted  by  the  Convention,  to  the 
President  of  the  Convention  of  Georgia,  or  if  the 
Convention  shall  have  adjourned,  then  to  the 
Governor  of  said  State. 

Mr.  Birch  (of  the  same  committee.)  It  is  due 
to  myself  to  state,  that  in  view  of  the  delicate  and 
important  duties  of  the  Committee,  I  moved  at  an 
early  day  of  the  session  that  it  (as  well  as  the  Com- 
mittee onFederal  Relations)  should  have  leave  to  sit 
during  the  sessions  of  the  Convention.  I  design  to 
cast  no  reproach  upon  the  Chairman  of  theCommit. 
tee,  but  to  state,  as  a  reason  why  I  have  not  my- 
self prepared  a  somewhat  different  (though,  of 
course,  a  less  able)  report,  that  although  I  had 
personally  called  the  attention  of  the  Chairman 
to  the  propriety  of  a  more  early  meeting  of  his 
Committee,  its  first  session  was  held  last  night, 
and  even  then  the  meeting  was  not  a  full  one.  I 
will  add  no  more,  except  that  the  resolutions 
which  I  will  read  to  the  Convention  are  all 
I  have  had  leisure  to  properly  prepare  in  be- 
half of  the  minority  of  the  Committee,  and 
in  consonance  with  the  views  I  have  more  fully 
indicated  in  my  speech  during  the  first  week  of 


255 


the  session.  These  resolutions  I  will  offer,  at  a 
proper  time,  as  a  substitute  for  those  of  the  ma- 
jority of  the  committee. 

Mr.  Birch  then  read  his  resolutions,  as  fol- 
lows: 

Resolved,  That  whilst  denying  the  legal  right 
of  a  State  to  secede  from  the  Union,  (as  assumed 
in  the  communication  which  has  been  made  to 
this  State  by  the  Commissioner  from  the  State  of 
Georgia,)  we  recognize  in  lieu  thereof  the  right 
of  revolution,  should  sufficient  reason  arise  there- 
for. 

2.  That,  whilst  in  common  with  the  State  of 
Georgia,  we  deplore  and  reprobate  the  sectional 
disregard  of  duty  and  fraternity  so  forcibly  pre- 
sented by  her  Commissioner,  we  are  nevertheless 
undespairing  of  future  justice;  nor  will  we  des- 
pair until  our  complaints  shall  have  been  specifi- 
cally and  unavailingly  submitted  to  the  Northern 
People. 

3.  That  we  concur  with  the  Commissioner  of 
the  State  of  Georgia,  that  the  possession  of  slave 
property  is  a  constitutional  right,  and  as  such 
ought  to  continue  to  be  recognized  by  the  Federal 
Government ;  that,  if  it  shall  invade  or  impair 
that  right,  the  slaveholding  States  should  be 
found  united  in  its  defense;  and  that  in  such 
events  as  may  legitimately  follow,  this  State  will 
share  the  danger  and  the  destiny  of  her  sister 
6lave  States. 

4.  That,  relying  upon  the  restoration  of  frater- 
nal relations  on  the  basis  of  adjustment  thus  and 
otherwise  denoted  in  the  action  of  this  Conven- 
tion, the  President  is  requested  to  communicate 
to  each  of  the  seceding  States  a  copy  of  its  re- 
solves, and  to  invoke  for  them  the  same  earnest 
and  respectful  consideration  in  which  they  are 
submitted,  and  which  restrains  this  Convention 
from  any  further  criticism  upon  the  mode  or  man- 
ner, the  motives  or  the  influences  for  the  action 
of  the  seceding  States — than  to  add,  that  it  has 
elicited  our  unfeigned  regret. 

Mr.  Howell.  I  have  voted  that  there  is  no  ade- 
quate cause  at  the  present  time  to  impel  Missouri 
to  dissolve  her  relations  with  the  General  Gov- 
ernment. But,  while  I  gave  that  vote,  I  think  it 
is  but  justice  to  myself  and  to  my  constituents 
to  say  that  the  report  that  has  been  read  is  not 
conceived  in  a  proper  spirit,  and  is  not  in  the 
temper  that  one  slaveholding  State  should  mani- 
fest toward  another;  and  therefore,  sir,  as  one 
of  the  members  of  the  committee  presenting  the 
report,  I  wish  to  state  that  I  have  not  been  able 
to  give  it  my  assent. 

Mr.  Welch.  I  believe  the  gentlemen  of  this 
Convention  are  anxious  to  adjourn.  lam  not 
now  prepared  to  say  what  discussion  that  report 
might  elicit.  It  is  a  very  long  document,  and 
the  Convention,  I  judge,  will  not  be  prepared  to 
act  upon  it  at  present.  The  most  of  the  report,  I 
beg  leave  to  remark  in  all  kindness,  is  on  a  sub- 


ject not  referred  to  the  committee.  I  do  not  un- 
derstand that  this  Convention  referred  the  speech 
of  the  Commissioner  fromGeorgia  to  the  committee 
with  the  expectation  that  a  reply  would  be  made. 
I  understand  that  the  ordinance  of  secession 
and  the  credentials  of  the  gentleman  were  re- 
ferred to  the  committee,  but  a  large  majority 
of  the  report  is  devoted  to  a  reply  to  the  speech 
of  the  Commissioner,  which  was  not  referred  to  the 
Committee.  As  a  large  majority  of  the  members 
of  this  Convention  desire  that  this  Convention 
shall  be  speedily  terminated,  I  therefore  renew 
my  motion;  but  I  will  not  renew  my  motion  to 
print,  because  the  journal  will  be  printed  before 
the  Convention  meets  again,  and  they  will  then 
have  the  report  before  them  as  printed  in  the 
journal.  I  therefore  move  to  lay  the  report  on 
the  table,  and  make  it  the  special  order  for  the 
third  Monday  of  December  next. 

Mr.  Hall  of  Buchanan.  Is  it  in  order  to 
amend  that  proposition.  I  would  like  to  amend 
by  moving  that  the  report  be  laid  on  the  table  and 
printed. 

The  Chair.    It  is  not  in  order. 

Mr.  Welch.  I  wish  to  remark  that  I  intended 
to  include  the  Minority  Report  also. 

Mr.  Knott.  As  a  member  of  the  Committee 
I  feel  it  is  due  to  myself  to  make  a  personal  ex- 
planation. I  have  not  had  the  pleasure  of  at- 
tending a  meeting  of  this  Committee  at  all,  on 
account  of  indisposition  which  I  have  been  la- 
boring under  for  several  days.  Furthermore,  I 
was  not  in  the  Convention  when  the  com- 
mittee was  appointed,  or  I  should  have  raised  a 
point  of  order.  I  believe  this  whole  matter 
ought  to  have  been  referred  to  the  Committee  on 
Federal  Relations. 

The  Chair.  I  would  say  the  gentleman  is  out 
of  order. 

Mr.  Knott.  I  simply  desire  to  make  a  per- 
sonal explanation. 

The  Chair.  The  gentleman  must  confine  him- 
self to  personal  explanation  without  giving  his 
opinions  as  to  what  should  have  been  done. 

Mr.  Knott.    I  ask  leave  of  the  House. 

The  Chair.  The  question  will  be  on  granting 
the  gentleman  leave. 

Leave  was  granted. 

Mr.  Knott.  I  was  in  favor  of  discharging 
this  committee  and  referring  this  subject  to  the 
Committee  on  Federal  Relations.  I  so  expressed 
myself  to  a  number  of  gentlemen  of  this  Con- 
vention. For  one,  sir,  I  did  not  then,  and  do  not 
now,  see  the  propriety  of  this  Convention  reply- 
ing to  the  speech  of  the  Commissioner  from 
Georgia.  Georgia  adopted  an  ordinance  of  se- 
cession, and  transmitted  it  without  argument  or 
explanation,  to  the  State  of  Missouri,  through 
her  Commissioner.  All,  then,  that  courtesy  to 
Georgia,  and  a  sense  of  our  own  dignity,  would 
require,  at  our  hands,  would  simply  be  to  trans- 


256 


mit  to  Georgia  our  action  upon  that  matter  with- 
out explanation .  There  are  many  things  in  the 
report  which,  taken  separately,  I  can  indorse ;  but 
there  are  many  others  which  I  cannot.  I  hope 
the  motion  to  postpone  to  December  will  be  car- 
ried. 

Mr.  Henderson.  I  wish  to  make  one  remark, 
in  the  shape  of  a  personal  explanation  simply. 
I  will  state  that  the  committee  might  have  come 
to  an  earlier  conclusion  in  regard  to  this  matter, 
had  it  not  been  for  the  fact  that  I  was  compelled 
to  act  upon  the  Committee  on  Federal  Relations, 
and  was  engaged  there  during  the  earlier  part  of 
the  session  of  the  Convention,  and  my  friend 
Mr.  Knott  having  occasion  to  go  to  Jefferson,  he 
requested  I  should  not  act  until  his  return.  Since 
that  time  he  has  been  so  much  indisposed  as  to 
be  unable  to  attend  our  sittings.  I  have  several 
times  had  it  announced  from  the  Secretary's 
desk,  and  have  gone  around  personally  among 
the  members  of  the  Committee  and  requested 
their  attendance.  Yesterday  evening  a  majority 
of  the  committee  got  together  and  action  was  ta- 
ken on  the  report.  Gov.  Stewart  and  Mr.  Knott 
were  not  at  the  meeting  last  night.  I  went  to 
Gov.  S.  this  morning,  and  he  concurred  in  the  re- 
port, so  that  makes  a  majority.  I  read  the  reso- 
lution to  Mr.  Knott  this  morning,  and  he  gave  as 
an  excuse  that  he  was  too  unwell  to  attend  our 
meeting.  These  are  the  facts.  Now,  in  refer- 
ence to  the  other  matter,  the  communication 
made  by  the  gentleman  from  Georgia,  as  I  under- 
stand it,  was  not  only  an  ordinance  of  secession, 
but  he  also  presented  reasons  why  Missouri  should 
dissolve  her  connection  with  the  General  Govern- 
ment and  take  her  stand  with  Georgia.  The  re- 
port is  not  intended  as  a  reply  to  the  gentleman 
from  Georgia.  It  involves  only  the  natural  con- 
sequences flowing  from  the  invitation  made 
by  him:  that  we  should  dissolve  our  con- 
nection with  the  General  Government  and 
unite  with  Georgia  in  the  formation  of  a  separate 
and  distinct  Confederacy.  That  being  the  invita- 
tion, we  owe  it,  as  a  matter  of  courtesy  to  the 
State  of  Georgia  and  her  Committee,  to  give  our 
reasons  why  we  cannot  accept  her  invitation. 
The  report  is  strictly  confined  to  that  matter. 

Mr.  Hall,  of  Buchanan,  called  for  a  division 
of  the  question. 

The  report  was  then  laid  on  the  table. 

The  ayes  and  noes  were  then  demanded  on  the 
motion  to  make  the  report  the  special  order  for 
the  3d  Monday  in  December  next. 

EXPLANATION  OF  VOTES. 

Mr.  Dunn.  Mr.  President,  I  will  vote  for  the 
postponement,  for  the  reasons  given  by  the  gen- 
tleman from  Clay,  (Mr.  Doniphan,)  and  I  fully 
concur  in  the  views  just  enunciated  by  him. 
I  indorse  the  resolutions  presented  on  behalf  of 
the  minority  of  the  committee,  by  my  colleauge 


from  Clinton,  (Mr.  Birch;)  but  as  the  report  sub- 
mitted by  the  chairman  of  the  committee  is 
a  very  lengthy  one,  embracing  a  wide  range  of 
topics,  I  deem  it  best  to  postpone  the  whole 
subject,  in  order  to  give  ample  time  for  a  full 
examination  of  the  report  and  resolutions. 

Mr.  Doniphan.  Mr.  President,  I  desire  to  give 
my  reasons  for  voting  to  postpone.  I  most  fully 
indorse  the  resolutions  read  by  the  gentleman 
from  Clinton,  and  especially  the  third  of  the  se- 
ries— as  it  contains,  substantially,  my  own  views 
upon  the  subjects  enunciated.  A  few  days  ago  I 
voted  against  an  amendment  offered  by  the  gen- 
tleman from  Montgomery,  (Mr.  Bast,)  as  I  did 
not  think  such  amendment  was  legitimate,  in 
that  connection.  We  were  then  presenting  a  ba- 
sis of  adjustment  to  the  whole  Union,  and  I  did 
not  deem  it  in  good  taste,  or  at  all  proper,  to  pre- 
sent it  in  the  nature  of  an  ultimatum,  or  in  a  spir- 
it of  apparent  dictation  to  the  other  States,  free 
or  slave — but  intended,  at  a  proper  time,  to  pro- 
sent  my  own  views,  and  those  of  concurring 
friends,  similarly  situated,  in  a  separate  proposi- 
tion ;  and  no  opportunity  could  have  been  more 
proper  than  such  a  resolution,  in  answer  to  the 
propositions  from  Geoi-gia,  alone.  But  as  fully 
and  heartily  as  I  indorse  them,  and  desirous  as  I 
feel  for  this  Convention  to  announce  the  opinion 
in  this  manner,  that  when  all  means  have  failed, 
in  our  opinion  and  the  opinion  of  the  border  slave 
States,  to  obtain  any  honorable  adjustment,  that 
their  final  position  must  be  the  same— their  inter- 
est, their  honor  and  their  destiny  is  the  same — 
yet,  as  I  do  not  approve  the  majority  report,  and 
deeming  it  due  to  Missouri  and  to  ourselves  not 
to  send  any  such  unkind  or  ungracious  message 
to  a  sister  State,  though  erring,  when  we  should 
conciliate,  and  use  every  means  to  induce  her  to 
return— I  shall  vote  for  the  postponement. 

Mr.  Redd.  While  I  am  prepared  to  vote  for 
the  minority  report,  yet  in  view  of  the  course 
pursued  by  this  Convention  to  cut  off  all  amend- 
ments by  a  motion  for  the  previous  question 
made  in  the  same  breath  that  the  resolution  is  of- 
fered—in view  of  that  policy  I  shall  vote  aye. 

Mr.  Sol  Smith.  When  the  application  of  Mr. 
Glenn  of  Georgia,  to  be  heard  in  this  Convention 
was  made,  I  voted  against  hearing  him,  and  there- 
fore it  is  that  I  must  explain  my  vote.  I  voted 
against  hearing  the  Commissioner  from  Georgia, 
because  the  credentials  he  presented  to  the  Con- 
vention, officially  informed  us  that  his  object  was 
to  invite  the  co-operation  of  Missouri  in  forming 
a  Southern  Confederacy.  The  Constitution  of 
the  United  States,  which  I  have  sworn  to  sup- 
port, provides  (Art.  1,  Sec.  10),  that  "  No  State 
shall  enter  into  any  agreement  or  compact  with 
another  State  or  with  a  foreign  power."  We 
cannot,  therefore,  entertain  his  proposition.  If 
Mr.  Glenn  had  come  here  asking  to  bring  about 


257 


a    reconciliation    between    the    States  I    would 
have  received  him  with  open  arms. 

Now  on  this  question  of  postponing  till  the 
3d  Monday  in  December,  I  have  this  to  say:  that 
as  the  reports  are  now  on  the  table,  they 
are  liable  and  subject  to  be  called  up  at 
any  time  at  the  will  of  a  majority  of  this 
House.  I  am  in  favor  of  calling  them 
up  immediately,  and  I  shall  therefore  vote 
against  a  postponement.  I  say  the  sooner  we 
make  our  wishes  known  to  Georgia,  and  give 
our  answer,  the  better;  the  sooner  we  tell 
Georgia  and  the  seceded  States  that  Missouri  is 
going  to  stay  in  the  Union,  the  sooner  we  can 
bring  them  back.  There  is  not  one  word  in 
the  resolutions  offered  in  the  majority  report 
but  what  I  am  ready,  as  one  of  the  members  of 
this  Convention,  to  say  to  our  sister  Georgia.  I 
believe  this  is  the  best  way,  to  bring  her 
back  into  the  Union;  and  when  she  is  brought 
back,  and  the  other  States  are  brought  back, 
I  will  join  with  my  friend  here,  (Mr.  Allen,) 
who  always  answers  first  when  the  ayes  and 
noes  are  called— this  good  looking  gentleman  on 
my  right— I  will  join  with  him  in  killing  the  fat- 
ted calf,  when  Georgia  and  the  other  seceded 
States,  like  the  Prodigal  Son,  shall  return, 
and  will  fall  upon  the  necks  of  their  people  and 
kiss  them;  and  I  will  not  confine  myself  to  the 
ladies,  as  he  says  he  will,  but  I  will  kiss  every 
man  and  every  woman  and  every  child  in  Geor- 
gia, or  any  other  Southern  State;  and  if  necessa- 
ry to  show  my  devotion  to  the  Union  cause,  and 
as  a  means  of  bringing  them  back,  I  would  not 
object,  even,  to  kiss  some  good  looking  niggers! 
(Great  laughter.) 

Mr.  Stewart.  I  shall  vote  against  a  postpone- 
ment, and  in  doing  so  I  desire  to  explain  my  vote. 
I  do  not  approve  of  the  practice,  but  I  consider  I 
have  just  as  much  right  to  do  so  as  any  other 
man.  My  private  opinion  is,  publicly  expressed, 
that  this  Convention  was  gotten  up  for  the  pur- 
pose of  putting  Missouri  out  of  the  Union  before 
the  delivery  of  Lincoln's  Inaugural  address.  I 
dissented  from  that  opinion,  and  I  believe  I  had 
something  to  do  in  preventing  such  a  catastrophe 
in  my  last  message,  which  differed  most  diametri- 
cally from  that  of  Mr.  Jackson— Gov.  Jackson. 
He  entertained  one  view  of  that  question,  and 
I  differed  with  him,  for  we  can  have  our  rights.  I 
am  opposed  to  the  word  secession.  I  do  not  be- 
lieve there  is  such  a  word  in  the  book.  I  believe 
the  encouragement  of  such  a  principle  would  not 
only  destroy  the  people  of  the  United  States, 
but  would  destroy  all  government.  I  look 
upon  this  Government,  as  I  look  upon  a  contract 
among  gentleman.  If  two  gentlemen  declare 
they  will  make  a  contract  and  say  we  will  invest 
a  certain  portion  of  our  means,  and  draw  out  our 
share  of  the  profits,  in  proportion  to  what  we  put 


in,  I  think  if  one  of  them  should  take  all 
the  money,  and  put  it  in  his  pocket,  and  walk  off 
with  it,  that  would  be  secession.  I  do  not  want 
any  such  principle  as  that  recognized.  I  don't 
think  I  am  obliged  to  go  out  because  Georgia  or 
any  other  State  has  gone  out.  I  believe,  how- 
ever, that  Georgia  has  a  right  to  protection  of  her 
property,  but  I  don't  believe  cotton  is  king.  I 
believe  beef  and  mutton  are  as  much  kings  as 
cotton.  I  believe  the  Abolitionists  of  the  North 
have  inculcated  a  false  and  mock  sentiment 
among  the  people  of  the  North,  and  I  believe  if  we 
could  dispose  of  many  men  of  this  class,  it  would 
be  better  for  the  people  generally,  yet  at  the  same 
time,  I  think  the  South  took  advantage  of  their 
own  wrong  in  the  Charleston  Convention.  They 
seceded  right  there ;  such  men  as  Yancey — but  I 
won't  call  names — they  seceded,  and  if  they 
had  not  seceded  they  could  have  crippled  Lin- 
coln's Administration.  And  then  when  they  got  up 
a  Committee  of  Thirty-three  in  the  House  of  Rep- 
resentatives, they  seceded  again.  I  read  Black- 
stone  myself  once,  and  I  understand  it  to  be  a 
principle  of  law  and  common  sense,  that  no  man 
shall  take  advantage  of  his  own  wrong.  Now,  I 
think  the  seceded  States,  if  they  had  staid  in 
would  have  succeeded,  and  I  say  it  is  a  species  of 
bad  logic  to  turn  around  and  take  advantage  of 
their  own  wrong.  I  say  this  Government  is  car- 
rying out  the  great  mission  for  which  it  was  cre- 
ated, and  it  has  the  right  to  do  it  as  well  as  any 
other  government.  It  has  the  power  and  the 
right  to  protect  itself  against  external  invasion 
and  internal  strife  in  any  shape.  A  government 
must  possess  this  power;  this  power  to  coerce,  and 
I  don't  use  that  word  in  the  sense  of  common 
demagoguery — a  government  is  not  worth  any 
thing  if  it  does  not  possess  this  power.  A  gov- 
ernment that  has  no  constitutional  power  to  pro- 
tect itself  is  no  government  at  all.  I  would 
not  live  in  a  government  if  I  thought  it 
did  not  possess  the  moral  power  for  coercion. 
This  word  coercion  is  very  much  abused.  If  any 
gentleman  will  read  Webster's  dictionary,  as  I 
have,  although  I  don't  pretend  to  be  much  of  a 
scholar,  he  will  find  that  coercion  means  to  con- 
trol by  any  kind  of  force.  If  I  made  a  speech 
here  to-day,  and  I  should  convince  somebody 
that  I  was  right,  that  would  be  coercing,  not  by 
military  force,  but  by  argument.  If  I  felt  an  in- 
clination to  violate  the  law  in  some  respect,  the 
force  of  public  opinion  operating  upon  me  at  the 
time,  would  coerce  me.  I  think  that  coercion  and 
submission  follow  us  to  the  grave.  The  mother, 
when  she  dandles  the  infant  on  her  knee,  or  pats 
him  on  the  chin— I  think  that  is  coercion.  I  think 
the  child  loves  the  mother  because  she  coerces 
him,  and  if  she  were  to  take  a  stick  I  think  he 
would  object  to  it.  I  used  to  teach  school,  and  I 
found  out  that  I  could  coerce  the  scholars  bet- 
ter   with    the    tongue   than    with   the    stick. 

17 


258 


But  I  say  a  government  must  possess  this 
power  of  coercion,  either  in  one  way  or  another ; 
either  by  moral  suasion  or  some  other  agency, 
and  must  exercise  its  own  judgment  as  to  the 
proper  means  of  using  its  power. 

The  vote  was  then  announced  as  follows  : 

Ayes — Messrs.  Bartlett,  Bass,  Bast,  Bogy, 
Brown,  Calhoun,  Cayce,  Chenault,  Collier,  Craw- 
ford, Doniphan,  Donnell,  Douglass,  Drake,  Dunn, 
Frayser,  Mood,  Givens,  Gorin  Gravelly,  Harbin, 
Hatcher,  Hill,  Holt,  Hough,  Howell,  Hudgins,  Ir- 
win, Jamison,  Kidd,  Knott,  Marmaduke,  Matson, 
McCormack,  McDowell,  Morrow,  Moss,  Noell, 
Philips,  Pomeroy,  Kankin,  Redd,  Ritchey,  Ross, 
Rowland,  Sawyer,  Sayre,  Shackelford  of  How- 
ard, Shackelford  of  St.  Louis,  Sheeley,  Waller, 
Watkins,  Welch,  Woodson,  Woolfolk,  Zimmer- 
man—56. 

Noes — Messrs.  Allen,  Birch,  Breckinridge, 
Bridge,  Bush,  Eitzen,  Foster,  Gamble,  Gantt, 
Hall  of  Buchanan,  Hall  of  Randolph,  Henderson, 
Hendricks,Hitchcock,  Holmes,  How,  Isbell,  Jack- 
son, ,  Johnson,  Leper,  Linton,  Long,  Marvin, 
Maupin,  McClurg,  McFerran,  Meyer,  Norton, 
Orr,  Ray,  Scott,  Smith  of  Linn,  Smith  of  St. 
Louis,  Stewart,  Tindall,  Turner,  Wilson,  Wright, 
Vanbuskirk,  Mr.  President — 40. 

So  the  report  was  referred. 

The  question  then  recurred  on  the  adoption  of 
the  seventh  resolution  and  the  amendments 
thereto. 

Mr.  Shackelford,  of  Howard,  withdrew  Ms 
amendment. 

Mr.  Wilson  asked  leave  to  withdraw  his 
amendment. 

The  Chair  decided  it  could  not  be  withdrawn, 
except  by  the  consent  of  the  gentleman  from 
Clinton  (Mr.  Birch.) 

Mr.  Hall,  of  Buchanan,  then  offered  the  fol- 
lowing substitute  to  the  amendment  offered  by 
the  gentleman  from  Clinton : 

"  The  President  of  the  Convention  shall  be  add- 
ed to  the  committee,  and  shall  be,  ex-omcio, 
chairman  of  said  committee." 

Mr.  Birch.  I  prefer  that  the  subject  be  recom- 
mitted to  the  Committee  on  Federal  Relations- 
and  that  they  report  at  2  o'clock  to-day.  I  make 
that  motion. 

By  Mr.  Gantt.  Resolved,  That  the  report  of 
the  Committee  on  the  communication  of  the  Com- 
missioner of  Georgia,  together  with  both  sets  of 
resolutions  accompanying  the  same,  be  printed 
for  the  use  of  this  Convention. 

Mr.  Welch.  I  move  to  insert  100  copies. 

Mr.  Gantt.  That  would  hardly  be  enough. 
The  additional  expense  would  be  slight.  I  sug- 
gest 200  copies. 


Mr.  Welch.  I  will  amend  by  inserting  150. 

Mr.  Gantt.  I  assure  the  gentleman  the  differ-' 
ence  in  expense  will  be  so  trifling  as  not  to  be 
considered. 

The  Chair.  If  there  is  no  objection  two  hun-^ 
dred  copies  will  be  inserted. 

The  resolution  was  then  adopted. 

Mr.  Redd.  The  next  resolution  is  the  resolu- 
tion embraced  as  supplementary  t:>  the  report 
of  the  Committee  on  Federal  Relations  concern-- 
ing  a  Border  State  Convention.  I  desire  to  offer 
a  substitute  for  that  resolution. 

Mr.  Welch.  I  move  that  the  Convention  ad-' 
journ  till  2  o'clock. 

Motion  sustained. 

AFTERNOON   SESSION. 

Convention  assembled  at  2  o'clock. 

Mr.  Gamble,  from  the  Committee  on  Federal 
Relations,  presented  the  following  substitute  for 
the  seventh  resolution,  which  was  adopted : 

Resolved,  That  there  shall  be  a  committee  to 
consist  of  the  President  of  this  Convention,  who 
shall  beex-officio  Chairman,  and  seven  members, 
one  from  each  Congressional  District  of  the  State, 
to  be  elected  by  this  Convention,  a  majority  of 
which  shall  have  power  to  call  this  Convention 
together  at  such  time  prior  to  the  third  Monday 
of  December,  and  at  such  place  as  they  may  think 
the  public  exigencies  require,  and  in  case  any  va- 
cancy  shall  happen  in  said  committee,  by  death, 
resignation  or  otherwise,  during  the  recess  of  this 
Convention,  the  remaining  members  or  member 
of  said  committee  shall  have  pOwer  to  fill  such 
vacancy. 

Mr.  Gamble  also,  by  common  consent,  chang- 
ed the  phraseology  of  Mr.  Shackelford's  amend' 
met  to  the  5th  resolution,  so  as  to  make  it  harmo- 
nize with  that  resolution.  The  amendment  refer* 
red  to  now  reads  as  follows : 

"And  in  order  to  the  restoration  of  harmony 
and  fraternal  feeling  between  the  different  sec- 
tions we  would  recommend  the  policy  of  with- 
drawing the  Federal  troops  from  the  forts  within 
the  borders  of  the  seceding  States  where  there  is 
danger  of  collision  between  the  State  and  Federal 
troops." 

The  special  report  of  the  Committee  on  Federal 
Relations  in  regard  to  calling  a  Border  State  Con- 
vention, was  next  taken  up. 

Mr.  Redd  offered  the  following  substitute : 

Whereas,  The  Convention  of  the  State  of  Vir- 
ginia now[in*session  has  adopted  a  resoluton  in  the 
following  words,  to-wit : 

"The  peculiar  relations  of  the  States  of  Dela- 
ware, Maryland,  Virginia,  North  Carolina,  Ten- 
nessee, Kentucky,  Missouri  and  Arkansas  with 


259 


"other  States,  make  it  proper  in  the  judgment 
of  this  Convention  that  the  former  States  should 
consult  together  and  concoct  such  measures  for 
'their  final  action  as  the  honor,  the  interests,  and 
the  safety  of  the  people  thereof  may  demand,  and 
for  that  purpose  the  proper  authoritcs  of  those 
States  are  requested  to  appoint  commissioners  to 
meet  commissioners  to  be  appointed  by  this  Con- 
vention on  behalf  of  the  people  of  this  State,  at 
Frankfort,  in  the  State  of  Kentucky,  on  the  last 
Monday  in  May  next;"  and 

Whereas,  This  Convention  approving  of  said 
resolution,  and  being  desirous  of  co-operating 
with  the  States  named  therein  for  the  purposes 
therein  named ;  therefore 

Resolved,  That  seven  commissioners  be  ap- 
pointed by  the  President  of  this  Convention  to 
meet  the  commissioners  from  the  States  named 
fin  this  resolution  at  the  time  and  place  therein 
named,  and  said  commissioners  are  hereby  in- 
structed to  report  their  action  and  the  action  of 
said  Convention  to  this  body  at  the  next  meeting 
thereof. 

Mr.  Sawyer  offered  the  following  amendment 
to  the  substitute: 

Strike  out  all  after  the  word  resolved  and  in- 
sert: That  seven  delegates,  one  from  each  Con- 
gressional district,  be  elected  by  the  qualified 
voters  of  the  respective  districts,  whose  duty  it 
shall  be  to  attend  at  the  time  and  place  designated 
fey  the  Convention  of  the  State  of  Virginia,  for 
the  meeting  of  delegates  from  the  Border  States; 
and  if  there  shall  assemble  then  and  there,  dele- 
gates duly  accredited,  from  a  majority  of  the 
States  invited  to  such  Convention,  then  the  dele- 
gates from  this  State  shall  enter  into  conference 
with  them,  and  shall  endeavor  to  devise  a  plan  for 
the  amicable  and  equitable  adjustment  of  all  mat- 
ters in  difference  between  the  States  of  this  Union, 
and  this  Convention  urges  the  Legislature  of  this 
State  to  make  provision  by  law  for  the  election  of 
said  delegates  by  the  people;  and  in  the  event  the 
Legislature  shall  fail  to  make  such  provision  by 
law  for  such  election,  then  that  the  President  of 
this  Convention  shall  appoint  said  delegates,  and 
the  delegates  selected  under  this  resolution,  shall 
report  their  proceedings  in  such  Conference,  and 
any  plan  that  may  be  there  agreed  upon,  to  this 
■Convention,  for  its  approval  or  rejection. 

In  order  to  the  better  understanding  of  the 
above  amendment  and  substitute,  we  reproduce 
the  original  resolution  reported  by  the  committee. 
Tt  is  as  follows : 

Whereas,  It  is  probable  that  the  Convention 
of  the  State  of  Virginia,  now  in  session,  will  re- 
quest a  meeting  of  Delegates  from  the  Border 
States  for  the  purpose  of  devising  some  plan  for 
the  adjustment  of  our  national  difficulties :  and, 
whereas,  the  Stateof  Missouri  participates  strong- 


ly in  the  desire  for  such  adjustment,  and  desires 
to  show  respect  for  the  wishes  of  Virginia ;  there- 
fore, 

Be  it  Resolved,  That  this  Convention  will  elect 

Delegates,  whose  duty  it  shall  be  to  attend 

at  such  time  and  place  as  may  be  designated  by 
the  Convention  of  the  Stats  of  Virginia  for  the 
meeting  of  Delegates  from  the  Border  States; 
and  if  there  should  assemble,  then  and  there,  Del- 
egates duly  accredited  from  a  majority  of  the 
States  invited  to  such  Conference,  then  the  Dele- 
gates from  this  Convention  shall  enter  into  con- 
ference with  them,  and  shall  endeavor  to  devise  a 
plan  for  the  amicable  and  equitable  adjustment 
of  all  matters  in  difference  between  the  States  of 
this  Union.  And  the  Delegates  appointed  under 
this  resolution  shall  report  their  proceedings  in 
such  Conference,  and  any  plan  that  may  be  there 
agreed  upon,  to  this  Convention,  for  its  approval 
or  rejection. 

Mr.  Redd  explained  that,  when  the  proposi- 
tion for  a  Border  State  Convention  was  before  the 
Committee,  they  had  not  the  Virginia  resolution 
calling  such  a  Convention  before  them,  and  con- 
sequently did  not  know  whether  it  was  proposed 
by  the  Virginia  Convention  to  hold  a  Convention 
of  all  the  border  States,  or  only  the  border  slave 
States.  Hence  the  phraseology  adopted  in  the 
original  resolution.  But  now  he  held  a  copy  of 
the  Virginia  resolutions  in  his  hand,  and  as  they 
called  for  a  Convention  of  the  slave  States  only, 
he  had  worded  his  substitute  accordingly.  There 
was  also  the  further  difference  between  the  origi- 
nal resolution  and  the  substitute,  that  while  the 
former  proposed  that  the  delegates  be  elected  by 
the  Convention,  the  latter  proposed  that  they  be 
appointed  by  the  President. 

Mr.  Hall,  of  Buchanan.  The  Committee  that 
reported  the  original  resolution  were  not  aware, 
nor  do  they  now  know,  what  sort  of  a  Convention 
the  State  of  Virginia  may  recommend.  Virginia 
has  not  at  this  time  passed  any  resolution  upon 
this  subject.  There  is  no  doubt,  however,  that  it 
will  pass  a  resolution  recommending  a  Conven- 
tion of  the  border  States.  We  do  not  know 
whether  that  resolution  will  recommend  a  Con- 
vention of  all  the  border  States,  or  merely  of  the 
slave  States ;  hence  it  as  that  our  Committee  have 
recommended  the  appointment  of  Commission- 
ers to  meet  the  Commissioners  of  other  States  at 
such  convention  -as  the  State  of  Virginia  may 
recommend.  Our  object  is  to  co-operate  with 
Virginia  in  any  effort  which  she  may  make  to 
preserve  this  Union,  and  bring  about  a  settle- 
ment of  existing  difficulties.  I  now  move  to  fill 
the  blank  in  the  original  resolution  with  the  words, 
"  one  delegate  from  each  Congressional  district." 

Mr.  Sawyer.  I  desire  to  say,  that  the  amend- 
ment offered  by  me,  is  different  from  the  original 
resolution  and  the  substitute  of  the  gentleman 


260 


from  Marion  in  this,  that  it  provides  for  an  elec- 
tion of  delegates  by  the  people,  and  urges  the 
Legislature  to  make  provision  by  law  for  holding 
such  an  election ;  and,  if  the  Legislature  fail  in 
this,  it  gives  the  appointing  power  to  the  Presi- 
dent of  the  Convention.  I  have  offered  it  for 
the  purpose  of  testing  the  sense  of  this  Conven- 
in  regard  to  submitting  the  election  to  the  people 
in  the  various  Districts. 

Mr.  Hall,  of  Randolph.  It  is  possible,  sir, 
that  the  action  of  this  Border  State  Convention 
may  be  of  immense  importance  to  our  country. 
The  weal  of  the  country  may  depend  upon  the 
character  of  that  body,  and  it  is  suggested,  if  the 
border  slave  States  should  undertake  to  act  in  con- 
cert for  the  destruction  of  our  country,  they  may 
be  able  to  accomplish  it.  It  is  all  important  that 
it  should  be  composed  of  patriotic,  Union- 
loving  men.  For  that  purpose,  sir,  it  is  very 
desirable  that  the  influence  of  Missouri  should 
be  used  in  favor  of  the  Union.  It  is  de- 
sirable we  should  select  the  best  men  we 
can  find.  I  object  to  any  arrangement  in 
the  selection  of  delegates  that  will  prevent  us 
from  selecting  the  best  men  in  our  body.  I  ob- 
ject to  the  proposition  of  selecting  one  from  each 
Congressional  district,  because  it  precludes  us 
from  the  choice  of  the  best  men  we  have.  It  is 
not  at  all  probable  that  this  Convention,  under 
any  arrangement,  will  select  men  that  do  not  ex- 
press the  sentiments  of  a  majority  of  its  mem- 
bers ;  but  while  we  shall  select  such,  under  any  ar- 
rangement, it  is  very  desirable  that,  in  addition 
to  that  qualification,  they  should  have  the  quali- 
fication of  giving  weight  to  their  recommenda- 
tions, and  of  having  the  power  to  enforce  their 
views  in  any  assembly  in  which  they  may  act. 
Among  the  Union  loving-men,  therefore,  we 
want  men  of  weight,  men  of  talent,  of  influence; 
those  who  will  exert  upon  the  delegates  from 
other  States  all  the  influence  that  those  qualities 
and  that  character  can  give  them. 

I  moreover  have  some  objection  to  the  number 
of  delegates.  I  can  find,  in  my  opinion,  five  men 
that  will  more  fully  meet  the  views  of  the  ma- 
jority of  this  Convention  than  seven;  just  as,  in 
my  opinion,  seven  delegates  would  be  more 
efficient  than  a  larger  number.  My  own  choice 
would  be  three;  but,  inasmuch  as  a  precedent 
has  already  been  made  in  the  appointments  to  the 
Peace  Conference,  of  representing  this  State  by 
five,  I  will  propose  that  the  blank  be  filled  by 
five. 

Mr.  Sheelet.  I  have  come  here,  Mr.  Presi- 
dent, pledged  to  go  for  a  border  slave  State  Con- 
vention. I  have  come  here  determined  to  make 
every  exertion  I  could  to  save  this  Union — to 
leave  nothing  undone  that,  in  my  judgment, 
would  tend  to  promote  peace  and  harmony  all  over 
my  country.    I  have  come  to  the  conclusion  that 


the  best  thing  that  could  be  done  to  bring  about 
such  a  result,  would  be  the  calling  of  a  border 
slave  State  Convention.  Whenever  you  can  get 
these  States  to  co-operate  with  each  other,one  will 
not  go  out  until  they  all  can  agree,  and  by  that 
means  you  keep  them  together.  You  keep  them 
in  the  Union,  and  you  give  time  for  the  Northern 
mind  to  react,  and  give  us  such  Constitutional 
guarantees  as  we  are  willing  to  accept.  I  be- 
lieve, in  this  case,  that  time  is  the  essence  of  the 
contract.  If  we  can  get  time,  sir,  all  will  be 
right.  I  have  no  doubt  of  it  myself.  I 
believe  if  you  give  the  Northern  people 
time  to  act,  they  will,  with  a  unanimity  unprece- 
dented, come  up  and  give  us  our  guaran- 
tees. Then  the  question  arises,  what  is  the  best 
mode  and  manner  to  call  such  a  Convention.  I 
believe  in  distributing  delegates  in  every  portion 
of  the  State,  and  I  will  say  to  the  gentleman  from 
Randolph,  that  we  have  men  of  talent  in  every 
portion  of  the  State,  and  there  is  not  a  Congres- 
sional District  but  what  has  as  many  men  worthy 
to  be  elected  delegates  to  the  Convention  as  the 
resolution  requires,  and  more — men  in  whom  the 
people  would  confide;  men  in  every  respect  qual- 
ified to  represent  us  in  any  Convention  whatever. 
I  do  not  believe  we  have  the  right  to  confine  our- 
selves, in  the  election  of  delegates,  to  this  body. 
There  are  others  just  as  well  qualified  to  represent 
the  State.  I  also  think  we  should  have  at  least  as 
many  delegates  as  we  have  members  of  Congress. 
It  is  true  that  Ave  are  at  present  the  immediate 
representatives  of  the  people.  They  have  but 
lately  elected  us,  and  it  may  be  supposed  that  we 
are  the  immediate  exponents  of  their  wishes.  We 
can  elect  the  delegates,  but  the  people  can  elect 
them  better  than  we  can.  Believing  that  they  are 
the  proper  source  of  power,  in  this  as  in  all  other 
respects,  and  that  it  is  wrong  to  take  the  election 
from  them,  I  shall  vote  for  the  amendment  of  Mr. 
Sawyer. 

Mr.  Shackelford,  of  Howard,  moved  the 
previous  question,  which  was  sustained. 

The  question  being  on  the  adoption  of  Mr. 
Sawyer's  amendment,  the  following  gentlemen 
explained  their  votes : 

Mr.  Henderson.  I  desire  to  say  that  I  am 
decidedly  in  favor  of  selecting  one  delegate  from 
each  Congressional  District.  I  have  no  objec- 
tion at  all  to  an  election  by  the  people.  I  look 
to  the  people  to  settle  these  questions,  and  if  this 
was  a  Convention  called  for  the  purpose  of  al- 
tering or  amending  the  Constitution,  I  should 
most  assuredly  vote  for  the  proposition  offered 
by  the  gentlemen  from  Lafayette,  (Mr.  Sawyer.) 
But  that  is  not  the  object  of  the  Convention. 
We  have  met  here  for  the  purpose  of  devising 
some  means  for  settling  our  national  difficulties. 
The  amendment  proposes  to  refer  the  matter  of 
an  election  of  delegates  to  the  Legislature.  Now, 


261 


I  do  not  know  at  what  time  Virginia  will  call  a 
Border  States'  Convention,  but  it  may  be  before 
we  can  have  an  election  by  the  people,  and  I  am 
therefore  in  favor  of  electing  the  delegates  by 
this  Convention.  I  do  not,  by  any  means,  object 
to  the  action  of  the  people,  but  would  rather 
have  the  Convention  elect  in  this  instance,  be- 
cause of  the  difficulty  in  time. 

Again,  according  to  this  amendment,  if  the 
Legislature  fail  to  prescribe  an  election  by  the 
people,  then  your  Honor  will  be  called  upon  to 
act.  Now,  I  have  the  greatest  confidence  in  your 
Honor,  but  still  I  may  be  excused  for  preferring 
that  the  Convention  should  act  in  a  matter  of  so 
much  responsibility  as  this.  I  shall  therefore 
vote  against  the  amendment. 

Mr.  Hudgixs.  This  proposition  of  a  border 
slave  State  Convention  is  one  that  I  look  upon  as 
better  calculated  to  bring  about  an  adjustment  of 
our  present  difficulties  and  restore  harmony,  than 
any  other  measure  passed  upon  by  this  body.  It 
is  more  important  than  anything  else  we  have 
voted  upon,  and  as  the  selection  of  these  dele- 
gates is  a  matter  of  the  utmost  importance  and 
having  the  greatest  responsibility  attached  to  it, 
I  feel  inclined  heartily  to  concur  in  the  amend- 
ment of  the  gentleman  from  Lafayette.  I  believe 
in  letting  the  people  take  this  matter  into  their 
own  hands  and  assume  the  whole  responsibility. 
I  believe  that  there  are  intelligent  men  outside  of 
this  Convention — in  every  district — who  are  fully 
capable  to  do  justice  to  the  mission  which  is  con-  j 
tided  to  them  under  the  resolution.  I  shall  there-  | 
fore  vote  aye  on  the  amendment. 

Mr.  Moss.  I  believe  in  the  policy  of  letting 
the  people  select  their  representatives  in  all  mat- 
ters affecting  their  interest.  But,  sir,  in  this 
case,  all  the  issues  that  will  be  presented  to  the 
Border  State  Convention,  were  before  the  people 
in  the  election  of  their  delegates  to  this  Conven- 
tion. Now,  sir,  if  there  was  a  question  of  public 
policy  submitted  to  this  Convention,  that  had  not 
been  thoroughly  canvassed  before  the  people,  I 
should  be  in  favor  of  leaving  this  election  to  the 
people,  but  the  whole  question  has  been  can- 
vassed before  them,  and  their  delegates  came 
here  virtually  instructed  by  the  people  what  they 
are  to  do.  The  sentiments,  I  presume,  of  the 
delegates  here  are  the  sentiments  of  the  people  of 
Missouri,  and  I  shall  therefore  vote  against  the 
amendment.  I  am  opposed  to  going  back  be- 
fore the  people,  and  going  into  a  game  of  hard 
scrabble  with  the  secessionists  as  to  who  shall 
have  the  power  in  that  Border  State  Convention. 

Mr.  Norton.  I  desire  to  explain  the  reasons 
which  will  impel  me  to  vote  B£rainst  this  amend- 
ment. The  proposition  now  before  the  Conven- 
tion is  to  send  delegates  to  a  Border  State  Con- 
tion,  which  may  or  may  not  meet.  That  Conven- 
tion is  to  be  convened  upon  a  hypothetical  state  of 


facts.  If  the  States  of  Virginia,  Maryjand,  Dela- 
ware, North  Carolina,  Missouri,  Arkansas,  etc.,  or 
a  majority  of  them,  were  to  send  delegates  to  a 
Border  State  Convention,  then  the  delegates  ap- 
pointed by  this  Convention,  or  elected  by  the  peo- 
ple, or  appointed  by  the  President,  as  the  case 
may  be,  would  be  authorized,  under  this  resolu- 
tion, to  meet  in  conference  with  those  delegates 
in  that  Convention.  The  assembling  of  that  Con- 
vention is  based  upon  a  hypothetical  state  of  facts- 
What  are  the  facts?  In  North  Carolina,  no  Con- 
vention has  been  called;  Tennessee  has  voted 
against  a  Convention.  From  Maryland  and  Del- 
aware our  advices  are  that  there  will  be  no  Con- 
ventions there.  The  Legislature  of  this  State  is 
now  in  session,  and  I  am  informed  that  it 
designs  adjourning  on  Monday.  I  am  in 
favor  of  every  delegate  who  will  represent 
Missouri  in  a  Border  State  Convention  being 
selected  by  the  people.  I  am  in  favor  of  their 
coming  fresh  from  the  people,  and  if  there  was 
any  probability  that  they  could  be  understand- 
ing^ elected  by  the  people— that  is  to  say,  that 
they  could  be  elected  by  the  people  with  a  know- 
ledge of  the  fact  that  the  Border  State  Convention 
would  convene— I  should  most  heartily  favor  the 
amendment.  As  it  is,  I  doubt  whether  the  Legis- 
lature, not  knowing  whether  a  Border  State  Con- 
vention will  assemble,  and  if  it  will  assemble,  at 
what  time  it  will  assemble,  has  the  authority  to 
order  an  election  of  delegates  by  the  people.  I 
trust  and  hope  and  pray  that  a  Border  State  Con- 
vention may  be  held ;  but  I  do  not  see  any  neces- 
sity now  for  incurring  the  expense  of  a  popular 
election;  nor  do  I  know,  as  I  remarked,  that  the 
Legislature,  under  the  circumstances^  has  the 
power  to  order  such  an  election. 

The  amendment  proposes  that,  in  case  the 
Legislature  shall  fail  to  provide  for  an  elec- 
tion, the  President  of  this  body  shall  have 
power  to  appoint  the  requisite  number  of  dele- 
gates. Now,  with  all  due  deference  to  the 
patriotic  qualities  and  high-mindedness  of  the 
President,  I  am  still  of  opinion  that  if  we 
cannot  get  an  election  by  the  people,  an  elec- 
tion by  this  Convention  is  the  next  best 
thing  which  we  can  do.  I  believe  that  this 
question  has  been  fully  canvassed  before  the  peo- 
ple, and  that  we  are  prepared  to  reflect  the  senti- 
ments of  the  people  in  electing  Delegates  to  this 
Convention.  I  shall  therefore  vote  against  the 
amendment. 
j       Mr.  Orr.  Mr.  President— 

The  Chair.  I  will  say  to  the  Convention  that  I 
|  deem  it  my  duty  to  enforce  the  rules  in  regard  to 
|  the  explanation  of  votes  more  strictly  than  has 
|  heretofore  been  the  case.  I  cannot  allow  gentle- 
I  men  to  go  outside  of  a  strict  explanation  of  their 
I  votes  in  regard  to  the  question  pending. 

Mr.  Orr.  Well,  sir,  I  shall  vote  against  this 
I  amendment,  because  its  adoption  will  cost  the 


2G2 


State  ten  thousand  dollars.    That's  all.    [Laugh- 
ter.] 

Mr.  Phillips.  Mr.  President— I  should  be 
pleased  to  vote  for  this  amendment,  inasmuch  as 
it  was  offered  by  my  colleague.  But,  sir,  for  the 
reasons  given  by  the  gentleman  from  Platte,  who 
has  just  assigned  the  objections  entertained  in  my 
own  mind,  I  am  forced  to  vote  against  it.  Not 
that  I  am  opposed  to  remitting  this  election  im- 
mediately to  the  people;  for  I  believe  that  the 
great  heart  of  the  people  of  this  State  is  patriotic 
and  true,  and  that  they  would  delegate  men  to 
Frankfort  trustworthy.  But,  sir,  believing  the 
plan  proposed  by  the  amendment  for  getting  this 
matter  before  the  people,  to  be  impracticable,  I 
vote  no. 

Mr.  Pomeroy.  I  go  upon  the  principle  that  the 
less  agitation  we  have  at  present  on  the  slavery 
question,  the  better  it  is.  A  popular  election, 
such  as  that  proposed  in  the  amendment,  will  be 
liable  to  produce  a  good  deal  of  excitement,  and 
hence  I  shall  vote  against  it.  I  think  that  the 
people  have  given  us  full  power  to  elect  these  del- 
egates, and  I  am  convinced  that  nothing  will  so 
mur.h  retard  a  restoration  of  peace  and  fraternal 
feeling,  as  the  continued  agitation  of  the  slavery 
question. 

Mr.  Redd.  Mr.  President,  I  shall  state  briefly 
the  reason  for  the  vote  I  shall  give.  The  gentle- 
men who  oppose  the  amendment  have  satisfied 
me  I  ought  to  go  for  it.  It  is  true  that  Maryland, 
North  Carolina  and  Kentucky  have  not  yet  called 
conventions;  perhaps. the  reason  is  that  they  are 
afraid  to  trust  the  people.  While  I  am  not  afraid 
to  trust  the  President  of  this  body,  I  am  not 
afraid  to  trust  the  people  with  the  selection  of 
their  own  agents,  nor  am  I  afraid  to  meet  the  se- 
cessionists of  Missouri,  (as  some  of  the  gentle- 
men appear  to  be,)  before  the  people  of  Missouri. 
I  shall  therefore  vote  aye. 

Mr.  Ritchey.  I  am  opposed  to  a  Border  State 
Convention,  for  the  reason  that  the  Constitution 
makes  no  provision  for  such  a  convention,  and  it 
being  a  sectional  convention  its  effect  will  be  to 
create  a  degree  of  prejudice  in  the  minds  of  our 
Northern  brethren,  and  thereby  endanger  the  ad- 
justment of  our  national  difficulties  in  a  National 
Convention.  And  further,  all  that  can  be  done  in 
in  a  Border  State  Convention  can  be  done  in  a 
National  Convention,  where  the  propositions  of 
the  border  States  can  be  ratified  or  rejected. 
However,  if  propositions  made  by  the  border 
States  in  a  national  convention  should  be  rejec- 
ted, then  I  should  be  in  favor  of  a  Border  State 
Convention  to  determine  what  course  of  policy 
should  then  be  pursued  by  the  border  States.  I 
vote  no. 

Mr.  Shackelford,  of  Howard.  The  Border 
State  Convention  is  merely  a  conference  on  the 
part  of   commissioners  sent  by  the   States,  and 


their  action  has  no  legal  effect  at  all;  and  as  we 
have  already  provided  for  delegates  to  a  Nation- 
al Convention,  to  be  elected  by  the  People,  and 
as  this  National  Convention  will  have  superior 
power,  and  must  either  adopt  or  reject  the  propo- 
sitions of  a  Border  State  Convention,  I  shall  vote 
no  on  this  amendment. 

Mr.  Stewart.  I  shall  vote  against  this  amend- 
ment for  the  reason  that  I  believe  the  people 
are  practically  here.  I  believe  the  members  of 
this  Convention  are  the  people.  I  believe  the  one 
great  featnre  which  distinquishes  a  republican 
government  from  a  monarchy  is,  that  in  a  repub- 
lican government  the  people  are  not  only  the 
source  of  power,  but  they  are  the  power;  and  as 
it  would  be  impracticable  for  the  whole  people  to 
act  in  a  body,  they  send  representatives,  and  act 
through  them.  I  think  any  lawyer  knows  that. 
I  say  that  this  Convention  is  bigger  than  the  Leg- 
islature. It  is  the  State  itself.  It  is  the  people. 
There  is  only  one  practical  question  before  the 
people,  and  that  is  whether  this  State  shall  go 
out  of  the  Union  because  some  other  State  or  any 
combination  of  States  tells  her  to  go  out,  or 
whether  she  shall  mind  her  own  business.  Mr. 
President,  I  believe  that  this  Convention  has  the 
right  to  put  its  thumb  right  on  this  Legislature — 
[Here  the  hammer  fell.] 

Mr.  Howell.  I  have  been  in  favor,  and  am 
now  in  favor  of  getting  an  adjustment  of  all  these 
difficulties  which  surround  us.  And  since  this 
amendment  was  offered,  upon  further  consid- 
eration I  have  become  satisfied  that  it  would  be 
impracticable;  and  as  I  am  in  favor  of  doing 
something  which  is  practicable,  and  for  the  reason 
that  this  Border  State  Convention  is  to  be  purely 
a  consulting  convention,  and  its  final  determina- 
tion will  have  no  binding  effect  whatever  upon 
this  State,  and  its  action  will  have  to  be  referred 
back  to  this  Convention  for  its  approbation,  I 
vote  no  on  this  amendment. 

Mr.  Allen  asked  leave  to  change  his  vote  from 
aye  to  no. 
The  vote  thereupon  stood  as  follows : 
Ayes— Bartlett,  Bast,  Birch,  Brown,  Calhoun, 
Cayce,  Chenault,  Collier,  Crawford,  Doniphan, 
Donnell,  Douglass,  Drake,  Dunn,  Frayser,  Givens, 
Gorin,  Harbin,  Hatcher,  Hill,  Holt,  Hough, 
Hudgins,  Jamison,  Marmaduke,  Matson,  Rankin, 
Redd,  Ritchey,  Rowland,  Sawyer,  Sayre,  Scott, 
Sheeley,  Waller,  Watkins,  and  Zimmerman— 37. 
Noes— Allen,  Bass,  Bogy,  Breckinridge, 
Bridge,  Bush,  Eitzen,  Flood,  Foster,  Gamble, 
Gantt,  Gravelly,  Hall  of  Buchanan,  Hall  of  Ran- 
dolph, Henderson,  Hendrick,  Hitchcock,  Holmes, 
How,  Howell,  Irwin,  Isbell,  Jackson,  Johnson, 
Kidd,  Leper,  Linton,  Long,  Marvin,  Maupin, 
McClurg,  McCormack,  McDowell,  McFerran, 
Meyer,  Morrow,  Moss,  Noell,  Norton,  Orr,  Phil- 
lips, Pomeroy,  Ray,  Ross,  Smith  of  Linn,  Smith 


263 


of  St.  Louis,  Shackelford  of  Howard,  Shackelford 
of  St.  Louis,  Stewart,  Tindall,  Turner,  Welch, 
Wilson,  Woodson,  Woolfolk.  Vanhuskirk,  and 
Mr.  President— 57. 

Amendment  declared  rejected. 

Mr.  Redd,  by  common  consent,  withdrew  his 
substitute,  and  offered  the  following  amendment 
to  the  original  resolution : 

"Strike  out  'to  be  elected  by  this  Convention,' 
and  insert  to  be  appointed  by  the  President  of  this 
Convention  in  place  thereof." 

Amendment  rejected  by  the  following  vote: 

Ayes— Bass,  Bast,  Brown,  Drake,  Flood,  Giv- 
ens,  Gorin,  Hatcher,  Hudgins,  Matson,  Redd, 
Sawyer,  Sayre,  Turner,  Woodson — 15. 

Noes— Allen,  Bartlett,  Birch,  Bogy,  Breckin- 
ridge, Bridge,  Bush,  Calhoun,  Cayce,  Chenault, 
Crawford,  Doniphan,  Dunn,  Eitzen,  Foster,  Gam- 
ble, Gantt,  Gravelly,  Hall  of  Buchanan,  Harbin, 
Henderson,  Hendrick,  Hill,  Hitchcock,  Holmes, 
Holt,  Hough,  How,  Howell,  Irwin,  Isbell,  Jack- 
eon,  Jamison,  Johnson,  Kidd,  Leper,  Linton, 
Long,  Marmaduke,  Marvin,  Maupin,  McClurg, 
McCormack,  McDowell,  McFerran,  Meyer,  Mor- 
row, Moss,  Noell,  Norton,  Orr,  Phillips,  Pomeroy, 
Rankin,  Ray,  Ritchey,  Ross,  Rowland,  Scott, 
Shackelford  of  Howard,  Shackelford  of  St.  Louis, 
Sheeley,  Smith  of  Linn,  Smith  of  St.  Louis,  Stew- 
art, Tindall,  Waller,  Watkins,  Welch,  Wilson, 
Woolfolk,  Wright,  Vanbuskirk,  Zimmerman, 
Mr.  President— 75. 

Mr.  Hough  asked  the  unanimous  consent  of 
the  Convention  to  read  a  substitute  for  the  origi- 
nal resolution,  which  he  had  prepared.  Objections 
being  made,  he  withdrew  his  request. 

On  motion  of  Mr.  Hall,  the  blank  in  the  res- 
olution, by  unanimous  consent,  was  filled  with 
the  words,  seven  delegates,  one  from  each  Con- 
gressional District. 

Mr.  Dunn  said  he  would  offer  one  remark  for 
the  benefit  of  the  Convention,  before  the  Conven- 
vention  proceeded  to  vote  on  the  resolution.  It 
was  this :  that  he  had  on  almost  every  question 
which  had  come  up  before  the  body,  so  voted  as 
to  i-equire  no  explanation.  He  hoped  that  others 
would  take  the  hint  and  do  likewise-  It  would 
greatly  facilitate  the  action  of  the  Convention. 
The  vote  was  thereupon  taken  upon  the  adoption 
of  the  resolution,  and  resulted  as  follows : 

Ayes.— Allen,  Bartlett,  Bass,  Bast,  Birch,  Bo- 
gy, Breckinridge,  Bridge  Brown,  Bush,  Calhoun, 
Cayce,  Chenault,  Collier,  Crawford,  Doniphan, 
Donnell,  Douglass,  Drake,  Dunn,  Eitzen,  Fray- 
ser,  Flood,  Foster,  Gamble,  Gantt,  Givens,  Gorin, 
Gravelly,  Hall  of  Buchanan,  Hall  of  Randolph, 
Harbin,  Hatcher,  Henderson,  Hendrick,  Hill, 
Hitchcock,  Holmes,  Holt,  Hough,  How,  Howell, 
Hudgins,  Irwin,  Isbell,  Jackson.  Jamison,  John- 


son, Kidd,    Knott,  Linton,  Long,  Marmaduke, 
Marvin,  Matson,  Maupin,  McClurg,  McCormack 
McDowell,  McFerran,  Meyer,  Morrow,  Moss,  No- 
ell,   Norton,    Phillips,    Pomeroy,    Rankin,  Ray, 
Redd,    Ross,    Rowland,    Sawyer,    Sayre,    Scott, 
Shackelford  of  Howard,  Shackelford  of  St.  Louis, 
Sheeley,  Smith    of   Linn,   Smith  of   St,  Louis, 
Stewart,     Tindall,     Turner,    Waller,    Watkins, 
Welch,    Wilson,    Woodson,    Woolfolk,  Wright, 
Vanbuskirk,  Zimmerman,  Mr.  President— 93. 
Noes.— Leper,  Orr,  Ritchey— 3. 
Mr.  Irwin  offered  the  following  resolution : 
Resolved,  That  this  Convention  will  adjourn  on 
Friday,  at  3  o'clock,  p.  m. 

Mr."  Shackelford  suggested  that  under  the 
resolution  just  adopted,  it  would  be  necessary  to 
go  into  an  election  for  delegates  to  the  Border 
State  Convention.  Other  business  was  before 
the  House,  and  the  Convention  might  not  get 
through  by  the  time  specified  in  the  resolution. 

Mr.  Redd  said  he  expected  the  Convention  to 
express  its  sentiments  in  regard  to  so  much  of 
the  majority  report  of  the  Committee  on  Federal 
Relations,  as  was  prepared  by  the  chairman  of 
the  Committee,  as  an  introductory  argument  to 
the  resolutions,  before  adjourning.  Mr.  Gamble, 
the  chairman,  had  said  he  was  willing  to  defend 
all  the  arguments  advanced  in  that  report  before 
the  people  of  Missouri  at  the  proper  time,  and 
he  would  now  be  willing  to  listen  to  anything 
which  that  gentleman  might  have  to  say.  He 
might  also  deem  it  incumbent  upon  him  to  re- 
fute some  of  the  arguments,  and  state  the  posi- 
tion of  Missouri  in  accordance  with  what  he  be- 
lieved to  be  the  true  sentiments  of  the  people. 
He  wanted  the  Convention  to  say  that  the  intro- 
ductory argument  in  this  report  is  not  the  voice 
of  the  people. 

Mr.  Phillips  suggested  that  if  this  question 
was  proposed  to  be  discussed  between  the  gentle- 
men, they  might  do  it  after  adjournment. 

Mr.  Irwin  said  the  Convention  had  been  sil- 
ting long  enough,  and  it  was  highly  proper  that 
that  it  should  adjourn  on  the  following  day. 

Mr.  Meyer  desired  to  know  whether  the  reso- 
lution to  adjourn  would  give  the  Convention 
time  enough  to  elect  delegates  to  the  Border  State 
Convention. 

The  Chair.  That  depends  upon  the  extent  to 
which  the  Convention  proposes  to  go  in  debating 
the  election. 

Mr.  Moss.  I  would  like  to  know  if,  in  case 
we  should  want  to  have  an  evening  session,  we 
can  have  this  hall  or  some  other  suitable  hall  for 
the  purpose. 

Mr.  Breckinridge.  I  will  make  the  neces- 
sary inquiry  if  the  gentleman  desires. 

Mr.  Stewart.  If  we  can't  get  a  room,  we 
may  be  able  to  camp  out  somewhere.  [Lau<-h- 
ter.] 


254 


Mr.  Siieeley.  Suppose  wo  adopt  this  resolu- 
tion, and  find  we  cannot  get  through  by  to-mor- 
row afternoon,  shall  we  have  the  power  to  re- 
consider the  vote  and  defer  the  adjournment? 

The  Chair.    Yes,  sir. 

[Cries  of  "question."] 

Mr.  Irwin's  resolution  was  thereupon  adopted. 

Mr.  Dunn  offered  the  following  resolution : 

Resolved,  That  the  delegates  from  each  Con- 
gressional district  he  requested  to  recommend 
suitable  persons  for  delegates  to  represent  Mis- 
souri in  the  Border  State  Convention,  and  that 
they  report  that  recommendation  to  this  Conven- 
tion to-moirow  morning,  at  10  o'clock. 

Mr.  Hall,  of  Buchanan.  I  do  not  see  any  ne- 
cessity for  this  resolution.  If  the  gentlemen  rep- 
senting  the  various  Congressional  districts  choose 
to  make  nominations,  they  can  do  so;  but  I  do 
not  see  any  necessity  or  propriety  of  passing  a 
resolution  to  that  effect;  I  therefore  move  to  lay 
it  on  the  table. 

Mr.  Birch.  I  hope  that  the  motion  to  table 
will  not  prevail.  I  desire  that  the  resolution  shall 
be  passed,  inasmuch  as  it  will  aid  me  in  coming 
to  a  proper  conclusion  in  regard  to  whom  I  shall 
vote  for. 

The  motion  to  table  was  put  and  carried. 

Mr.  Gamble.  The  gentleman  from  Marion 
seems  to  have  supposed  that  the  Convention  was 
in  some  manner  committed  to  the  report  written 
by  me  as  Chairman  of  the  Committee  on  Federal 
Relations.  My  understanding  of  the  introduction 
of  legislative  acts  is  this :  When  a  measure  is  to 
be  laid  before  a  legislative  body  by  a  Committee, 
it  is  common  for  the  Chairman  to  write  a  report, 
which  is  an  argument  in  support  of  that  measure. 
For  instance,  if  the  Committee  on  Commerce  in 
Congress  desires  to  submit  a  bill  proposing  a 
scheme  of  revenue,  the  Chairman  of  that  Commit- 
tee may,  if  he  sees  fit,  write  an  argument  in  favor 
of  that  scheme ;  but  when  the  report  comes  before 
the  House,  it  is  the  bill  which  is  acted  upon  and  not 
the  argument.  When  the  House  has  gone 
through  with  the  bill,  it  may  be  entirely  changed 
in  its  features,  and  the  argument  may  be  entirely 
incongruous  to  the  bill;  and  yet  I  do  not  know 
that  it  is  ever  proposed  to  change  the  argument 
so  as  to  suit  the  bill.  I  understand  that  this 
House  is  in  no  manner  pledged  to  my  argument. 
The  House  acts  upon  the  proposition  of  the  Com- 
mittee, but  when  it  does  so,  it  acts  upon  its  own 
view  of  the  proposition.  I  do  not  hold  any  gen- 
tlemen in  this  Convention  bound  to  maintain  the 
report  which  I  haA-e  written,  or  maintain  any- 
thing more  than  the  resolution  or  resolutions  for 
which  he  has  voted.  I  shall  not,  therefore,  deem 
it  proper  to  enter  upon  the  suggestion  made  by 
the  gentleman  from  Marion,  in  regard  to  a  de- 
bate on  the  report. 


The  Chair.  With  the  permission  of  the  gentle- 
man I  will  state  that  he  is  wrong,  in  my  opinion. 
My  impression  is  that  the  whole  report  comes  up 
for  adoption  or  rejection,  and,  although  the  in- 
troductory remarks  of  that  report  were  an  argu- 
ment offered  by  the  chairman,  I  take  it  for 
granted  that  that  argument  was  adopted  in  com- 
mittee, and  comes  before  the  Convention  as  a  part 
of  the  report.  It  becomes  the  property  of  the 
Convention,  and  they  may  pass  upon  the  whole 
of  it,  either  adopting  or  rejecting  it.  So  far  as 
reports  accompanying  bills  in  Congress  are  con- 
cerned, only  the  bills  come  before  Congress  for 
its  adoption,  and  not  the  reports  accompanying 
them.  But  this  is  a  very  different  thing,  and,  in 
my  judgment,  the  whole  report  of  the  Committee 
on  Federal  Relations  is  subject  to  amendment, 
adoption  or  rejection  by  the  Convention. 

After  some  further  discussion,  in  which  Messrs. 
Gamble,  Wilson,  Shecley  and  the  Chair,  partici- 
pated, the  matter  was  dropped  for  the  present. 

Mr.  Birch  called  up  the  report  of  the  Commit- 
tee of  which  he  was  chairman,  and  having  sub- 
mitted to  the  Convention  whether  it  would  make 
any  further  order  upon  the  subject, 

On  motion  of  Mr.  Wilson,  the  committee  was 
discharged. 

On  motion  of  Mr.  Norton,  the  Convention 
adjourned. 


NINETEENTH   DAY. 

St.  Louis,  March  22d.  1861. 

Convention  met  at  9  o'clock. 

Hon.  Sterling  Price  in  the  Chair. 

Prayer  by  the  Chaplain. 

On  motion  of  Mr.  Hall,  of  Randolph,  the 
reading  of  the  minutes  was  dispensed  with. 

Mr.  Hendlick  rose  to  make  a  personal  ex- 
planation. He  said  a  slight  mistake  had  been 
made  in  the  report  of  his  remarks  pending  the 
vote  taken  on  Mr.  Shackelford's  amendment,  and 
re-stated  his  position  as  follows : 

I  explained  in  these  words  when  the  question 
wTas  put  on  the  adoption  of  Mr.  Shackelford's 
amendment  to  the  original  resolution.  I  oppose 
the  adoption  of  the  amendment,  because  the  orig- 
inal resolution  expresses  the  proper  sentiment  of 
a  request  to  both  the  General  Government  and 
also  the  seceding  States,  to  withhold  and  stay  the 
arm  of  violence,  whereas  the  amendment  in  ad- 
dition thereto  requests  the  General  Government 
to  give  way  and  yield  to  a  demand  made  with  a 
menace.  It  seems  to  concede  too  much  to  the 
claim  of  the  legal  right  of  secession  and  demand 


265 


of  possession  of  the  Forts.  I  prefer  that  the  Gov. 
eminent  would  withdraw  the  troops  of  its  own 
free  will  and  accord. 

A  call  of  the  house  was  ordered,  and  28  members 
found  absent. 

Mr.  Birch  moved  that  the  Convention  proceed 
by  Congressional  Districts  to  elect  Delegates,  who 
shall  have  the  power  to  call  the  Convention  to- 
gether under  the  7th  resolution,  adopted  yester- 
day.   Agreed  to. 

Mr.  Long  nominated  Mr.  T.  T.  Gantt,  for  the 
first  Congressional  District. 

Mr.  Hall,  of  Buchanan,  moved  that  the  nomi- 
nation of  Mr.  Gantt  be  made  unanimous.  It  was 
so  declared. 

Mr.  Woodson  nominated  Dr.  J.  T.  Matson,  of 
DeKalb  county,  for  the  second  Congressional  Dis- 
trict. 

Mr.  Henderson  nominated  Mr.  "Woodson. 

Mr.  Redd  understood  that  the  nomination  of 
Mr.  Matson  was  agreed  to  by  all  the  counties 
comprising  the  Congressional  District,  excepting 
one  Senatorial  District. 


Mr.  Henderson  said  that  by  the  action  of  the 
Convention  on  a  resolution  which  was  offered 
yesterday,  he  considered  himself  at  liberty  to  pre- 
sent any  name  to  the  Convention.  He  had  not 
been  able  to  attend  the  meeting  of  delegates  from 
his  district.  He  knew  Mr.  Woodson  to  be  well 
qualified  to  act  as  committeeman,  and  was  will- 
ing to  take  upon  himself  the  responsibility  of 
nominating  him . 

Mr.  Howell.    In  reply  to  the  observations  of 
my  friend,  from  Pike,  I  have  to  remark  that  I  an- 
nounced on  this  floor  last  evening,  that  the  dele- 
gates from    the  Second  Congressional  District 
would  meet  after  tea  at  the  Everett  House.  Judge 
Henderson  was  notified  of  that  meeting,  and  in- 
formed me  that  he  could  not  be  present.    If  he 
called,  he  could   have  found  us  if  he  had  de- 
sired  to  do  so.    It   is   true   that   the  Conven- 
tion    voted   down     a    proposition    to     permit 
the     delegates    from     the    respective   districts 
to    select   their    own   delegate    to   the   Border 
State    Convention,    yet   the   resolution     giving 
each    Congressional     District    a  delegate,   was 
was  obviously  intended  to  give   a  reflex  of  the 
opinion  of  the   people  in   every   section  of  the 
State.    I  therefore   insist   that   the  Convention 
should  defer  to  the  nominations  as  made  by  the 
several  delegations,  and  elect  the  nominees  as  the 
surest  means  of  reflecting  the  will  of  the  people. 
Mr.  Doniphan  urged  the  necessity  of  harmo- 
nious action.    The  men  who  were  to  represent 
Missouri  in  the  Border  State  Convention,  should 
be  of  a  character  to  command  universal  respect. 
This  was  the  more  essential,  because  the  Legisla- 
ture might  think  of  sending  its  own  delegates,  or 


leaving  them  to  be  elected  by  the  people,  and  in 
such  case,  the  delegates  of  this  Convention 
should  be  able  to  go  before  the  people  and  vindi- 
cate their  claims  to  the  popular  suffrages. 

Mr.  Woodson  declined  the  nomination. 

The  Secretary  commenced  calling  the  roll,  pend- 
ing which 

Mr.  Henderson  withdrew  the  name  of  Mr. 
Woodson. 

On  motion  of  the  same  gentleman,  the  nomina- 
tion of  Mr.  Matson  was  made  unanimous. 

Nominations  for  the  Third  Congression'District 
being  in  order, 

Mr.  Woolfolk  nominated  Mr.  J.  T.  Tindall, 
of  Grundy  county. 

The  nomination  was  declared  unanimous. 

On  motion  of  Mr.  Hall,  of  Buchanan,  Mr.  Robt. 
Wilson,  of  Andrew  county,  was  nominated  for 
the  Fourth  Congressional  District. 

Concurred  in  unanimously. 

On  motion  of  Mr.  Marvin,  Mr.  J.  Proc  Knott, 
of  C@le,  was  nominated  for  the  Fifth  Congression- 
al District. 

Concurred  in  unanimously. 

On  motion  of  Mr.  Isbell,  Dr.  J.  W.  McClurg, 
of  Camdem  county,  was  nominated  for  the  Sixth 
Congressional  District. 

Concurred  in  unanimously. 

Nominations  for  the  Seventh  Congressional 
District  being  in  order, 

Mr.  Bogy  nominated  Dr.  McCormack,  of  Perry 
county. 

Mr.  Watkins  nominated  Mr.  Cayce. 

Mr.  Cayce  declined. 

Mr.  Watkins  insisted  on  the  nomination.  He 
proceeded  to  pay  a  high  eulogium  to  the  character 
and  qualifications  of  Mr.  Cayce. 

A  vote  was  taken,  with  the  following  result  : 
McCormack,  56;  Cayce,  32. 

Mr.  McCormack  was  declared  elected. 

On  motion  of  Mr.  Hall,  of  Buchanan,  the 
Convention  proceeded  to  the  election  of  Delegates 
to  the  Border  State  Convention. 

Mr.  Welch,  I  am  not  aware  whether  the  del- 
egates from  the  different  districts  have  agreed  up- 
on delegates  to  this  Conference.  It  is  important 
that  this  Convention  should  select  men  well  qual- 
ified, for  that  position.  In  all  probability,  as  has 
been  intimated,  the  Legislature  of  the  State  will 
order  an  election,  by  the  people,  of  delegates  to 
that  Conference.  Whether,  sir, that  may  be  done  or 
not,  of  course  I  am  not  prepared  to  say,  but  if  the 
Legislature  of  the  State  shall  assume  that  responsi- 
bility and  order  that  election,  I  think,sir,it  becomes 
this  Convention  to  select  men  who  are  able  and 
willing  to  incur  the  labors  of  a  heated  canvass.  I 


266 


believe  the  delegates  who  are  selected  by  this 
Convention,  should  immediately  announce  them- 
selves as  candidates  for  that  position,  in  order  to 
avoid  the  troubles  of  a  contested  election  in  that 
Border  State  Convention. 

The  Chair.  I  will  state  to  the  gentleman  that 
he  is  out  of  order.  There  are  no  nominations  be- 
fore the  Convention. 

Mr. .  I  nominate  Hon.  Hamilton  R.  Gam- 
ble for  the  First  District. 

Mr.  Welch.  I  was  about  saying,  Mr.  Presi- 
dent, that  we  should  bo  cautious  and  wise  in  the 
selection  of  our  delegates.  I  was  also  remarking 
it  would  be  the  duty  of  these  delegates  to  an- 
nounce themselves  as  candidates  for  the  position, 
in  order  to  avoid  the  trouble  of  a  contested  elec- 
tion in  that  Convention,  and  thus  destroy  the  in- 
fluence which  this  great  Empire  State  of  the 
West  ought  to  have  in  that  Convention.  Such 
being  my  views,  I  was  going  to  remark  that  I 
hope  no  Congressional  District  on  this  floor  would 
nominate  a  man  who  was  not  able  to  defend  this 
Convention  on  the  stump;  that  they  should  nomi- 
nate men  who  are  able  to  canvass  and  willing  to 
incur  that  labor.  I  know  not  whether  any  other 
District  except  our  own  has  agreed  upon  a  nomi- 
nation. We  have  nominated  a  gentleman  who  is 
able  and  willing  to  meet  these  questions  on  the 
stump,  and  I  hope  every  other  District  will  do  the 
same  thing. 

Mr.  Hall,  of  Buchanan.  I  move  that  Mr. 
Gamble  be  chosen  unanimously.  Motion  sus- 
tained. 

Mr.  Zimmerman.  I  rise  to  put  in  nomination 
the  Hon.  John  B.  Henderson,  of  the  Second  Dis- 
trict. It  is  unnecessary  to  say  anything  in  his 
behalf.  His  past  course  shows  that  he  is  able  to 
undertake  the  task  that  will  be  assigned  him. 

Mr.  Howell.  At  the  instance  of  all  the  dele- 
gates from  the  Second  Congressional  District,  ex- 
cept those  from  the  Pike  District,  I  put  in  nomi- 
nation Judge  Woodson.  Judge  Woodson  is  a 
man  of  large  experience  and  business  qualifica- 
tions. He  has  been  a  citizen  of  the  State  up- 
wards of  forty  years.  More  than  that,  he  is  a 
good  man.  He  was  elected  on  the  Union  ticket 
against  what  was  understood  to  be  a  secession 
ticket.  His  voice  and  acts  in  this  Convention  are 
as  good  a  guarantee  on  that  subject  as  the  Conven- 
tion ought  to  require. 

Mr.  Flood.  Permit  me  to  second  the  nomina- 
tion. It  is  unnecessary  for  me  or  any  other  gen- 
tleman to  speak  in  regard  to  Judge  Woodson.  He 
is  known  to  all  the  delegates  in  the  Convention. 
With  all  due  respect  to  the  other  nominee,  I  do 
not  believe  there  is  a  man  in  our  district  who  will 
reflect  the  wishes  of  the  people  better  than  Judge 
Woodson.  In  a  word,  I  will  say  he  is  a  Union 
man,  and  a  man  in  whose  heart  there  is  no  guile. 


The  vote  was  announced  as  follows : 

Henderson,  52;  Woodson,  37. 

Mr.  Roland.  I  rise  for  the  purpose  of  nomi- 
nating Wm.  A.  Hall,  of  Randolph  county,  for  the 
Third  Congressional  District. 

Mr.  Givens.    I  nominate  Mr.  Sayre. 

Mr.  Howell.  I  desire  to  inquire  whether  the 
delegates  from  that  district  have  agreed  upon  any 
one? 

Mr.  Rowland.  I  can  answer  that  ten  out  of  thir- 
teen of  the  delegates  nominated  Mr.  Hall.  I  in- 
tend to  be  consistent  in  my  actions  here,  and  vote 
for  delegates  who  reflect  the  sentiments  of  their 
districts.    I  shall  therefore  vote  for  Mr.  Hall. 

The  vote  was  announced  as  follows :  Hall,  66 ; 
Sayre,  26. 

Mr.  Birch.  At  a  meeting  of  twelve  out  of 
fourteen  of  the  Fourth  District,  James  H.  Moss 
was  unanimously  nominated.  I  have  the  honor, 
therefore,  to  put  him  in  nomination;  and  I  ask 
permission  to  say  that  he  has  as  well  sustained 
the  flag  in  foreign  lands  as  he  sustains  it  here ; 
and  his  capacity  to  act  in  a  Border  State  Con- 
vention has  been  made  manifest  by  his  acts  upon 
this  floor. 

Mr.  Gantt.  I  move  the  nomination  be  made 
unanimous. 

The  motion  was  sustained. 

Mr.  Philips,  I  put  in  nomination,  for  the 
Fifth  District,  Wm.  Douglass,  of  Cooper  county. 

Mr.  Brown.  I  put  in  nomination  Mr.  Com- 
ingo,  of  the  same  district,  a  gentleman  who  was 
elected  upon  a  Union  ticket,  who  is  as  sound  a 
Union  man  as  lives. 

The  vote  was  announced  as  follows :  Douglass 
71,  Comingo  20. 

Mr. .    I  reflect  the  will  of  the  majority 

of  the  Sixth  District  in  nominating  Judge  Hen- 
drick. 

Mr.  Isbell.    I  nominate  Mr.  Orr. 

Mr.  Chenault.    I  nominate  R.  W.  Crawford. 

Mr.  Birch.  I  wish  to  be  informed  if  cither  of 
these  gentlemen  have  been  agreed  upon  by  a  ma- 
jority of  the  delegates. 

Mr.  Turner.  I  understand  Judge  Orr  has 
been  nominated  by  two  caucuses. 

Mr.  Chenault.  I  would  inquire  when  these 
caucuses  were  had. 

Mr.  Turner.  One  of  them  was  held  last  even- 
ing. 

Mr.  Chenault.  If  I  recollect  right  one  of  the 
gentlemen  who  have  been  nominated  voted 
against  this  Border  State  Convention.  It  strikes 
me,  if  there  is  to  be  any  contest  on  the  subject, 
it  is  important  that  the  Convention  should  send 
men  who  are  favorable  to  the  Border  State  Con- 
vention. 


267 


Mr.  Gravelly  explained  in  regard  to  the 
meeting  of  the  delegates  from  the  sixth  Congres- 
sional district,  from  which  it  appeared  that 
neither  of  the  nominees  for  that  district  had  re- 
ceived a  majority  of  the  votes  of  the  delegation. 
He  said  he  indorsed  Mr.  Orr  as  a  sound  Union 
man,  and  would  have  been  willing  to  vote  for  him 
if  he  had  been  nominated.  He  preferred  Mr. 
Hendrick  however. 

Mr.  Turner  explained  that  he  did  not  intend 
to  convey  the  idea  that  Mr.  Orr  has  received  a 
majority  of  votes  of  the  delegates,  but  he  wished 
it  understood  that  Mr.  Orr  had  received  a  plurali- 
ty of  the  votes.  Mr.  Hendrick  and  Mr.  Orr  were 
both  good  Union  men,  and  Mr.  Orr  had  been 
nobly  sustained  bv  the  people  of  his  district  at 
various  times. 

Mr.  Orr.  I  wish  to  ask  the  gentleman  who 
put  me  in  nomination  to  withdraw  my  name.  I 
don't  want  to  be  the  cause  of  disturbance  in  the 
party.  It  is  said  I  am  a  Union  man.  I  am 
proud  of  it.  It  is  said  also  that  I  am  opposed  to 
this  border  State  convention.  I  acknowledge 
it.  I  was  also  opposed  to  the  calling  of 
this  Convention,  and  the  people  sent  me 
here  to  see  that  Missouri  was  not  taken  out  of  the 
Union.  If  I  should  go  to  this  Border  State  Conven- 
tion it  would  be  for  the  same  purpose.  I  desire, 
however,  that  my  name  be  withdrawn.  I  have 
every  confidence  in  Judge  Hendrick,  and  am  ready 
to  give  him  my  support.  I  believe  he  would  be 
the  right  man  to  represent  our  interests  in  a  Bor- 
der State  Convention.  I  shall  take  pleasure  in 
voting  for  him,  and  I  ask  that  my  name  be  with- 
drawn. 

Mr.  Isbell.  At  the  request  of  the  gentleman 
I  withdraw. 

Mr.  Chenault.  At  the  request  of  Mr.  Craw- 
ford, I  withdraw  his  name. 

The  nomination  of  Judge  Hendrick  was 
made  unanimous. 

Mr.  Hatcher.  I  rise  to  put  in  nomination  Mr. 
Watkins,  of  the  Seventh  Congressional  District. 
I  have  heard  it  strangely  insinuated  in  this  Con- 
vention that  that  gentleman  was  tinctured  with  se- 
cession. Those  who  make  that  assertion  do  him  a 
great  wrong  and  gross  injustice.  No  one  man  in 
Southeast  Missouri  has  done  as  much  to  put 
down  secession  as  Mr.  Watkins.  I  know  of  my 
own  personal  knoAvledge  that  he  has  cried  down 
secession,  that  he  has  declared  that  the  election 
of  Lincoln  *  as  not  a  cause  for  dissolution,  and  I 
have  never  heard  from  any  gentleman  on  this 
floor  more  effecting  and  touching  appeals  in  be- 
half of  the  Union  than  from  that  gentleman. 
He  ran  as  a  Union  man  in  his  district,  and 
he  had  no  opponent  upon  his  ticket,  and 
yet  'tis  said  he  is  tinctured  with  secession. 
I  have  noticed  particularly,  that  because  some 


members  from  Southeast  Missouri  have  differed 
in  some  slight  degree  from  some  of  the  resolu- 
tions reported  by  the  Committee  on  Federal  Rela- 
tions; that  for  that  reason  it  is  said  they  are  tinc- 
tured with  secession.  In  the  District  from*  which 
I  come  there  were  secession  candidates— those 
who  would  not  admit  it,  but  were  in  favor  of  it. 
But  in  the  county  from  which  Mr.  Watkins  came, 
not  a  secessionist  dare  raise  his  head.  I  feel  it 
my  duty  to  correct  this  strange  insinuation  which 
does  great  injustice  and  wrong.  I  nominate  him 
for  another  reason.  That  is  this :  In  the  Border 
State  Convention  that  is  to  be  held,  Virginia  will 
probably  send  her  Tylers,  Read,  and  other  distin- 
guished men,  and  other  States  will  send  distin- 
guished men.  We  propose  to  send  a  gen- 
tleman who  has— and  I  say  it  without  dis- 
paragement of  any  other  gentleman — no  su- 
perior in  that  Congressional  district;  besides, 
he  is  a  gentleman  who  has  had  a  large  legislative 
experience.  For  these  reasons,  believing  he  is  a 
statesman,  among  statesmen,  and  that  he  will 
faithfully  represent  Missouri,  and  the  Union  sen- 
timent of  Missouri,  I  place  him  in  nomination. 

Mr.  Bogy.  I  nominate  Mr.  Pomeroy.  I  be- 
lieve a  majority  of  the  delegates  of  that  district 
are  in  favor  of  him. 

Mr.  Stewart.  I  know  Mr.  Watkins,  and 
have  served  with  him  a  great  number  of  years  in 
the  Senate.  I  do  not  know  Mr.  Pomeroy  person- 
ally. I  don't  like  to  vote  in  the  dark.  I  believe 
I  should  be  governed  by  principle,  and  not  men. 
My  personal  predilictions  are  in  favor  of  Mr. 
Watkins,  because  I  know  him,  but  at  the  same 
time  I  desire  to  know  how  both  of  these  gentle- 
men stand  on  the  question  of  revolutionizing  or 
seceding. 

Mr.  Bogy.  I  will  say  Mr.  Pomeroy  is  a  Union 
man  He  is  in  favor  of  staying  in  the  Union  as 
long  as  he  can. 

Mr.  Watkins.  I  will  say  to  my  friend  Mr. 
Stewart  that  I  am  disposed  to  answer  his  inquiry. 
If  I  understand  him,  he  wished  to  know  whether 
I  am  in  favor  of  secession  or  revolution.  I  an- 
swer, without  hesitation,  I  am  opposed  to  seces- 
sion and  against  revolution;  I  am  for  the  Union, 
and  will  stay  in  it  as  long  as  there  is  any  chance 
or  prospect  of  our  getting  our  just  rights.  I  think 
the  slave  States  are  entitled  to  guarantees,  and  I 
think  the  North  ought  to  grant  them.  But  I  love 
the  Union,  and  will  try  every  legitimate,  honora- 
ble and  proper  means  to  obtain  those  guarantees, 
before  I  go  out.  I  am  no  secessionist,  and  never 
have  been.  I  am  no  revolutionist,  and  never 
have  been.  I  love  the  Union,  and  I  have  not  a 
particle  of  disunion  love  in  my  veins. 

Mr.  Stewart.  I  should  like  to  have  the  other 
gentlemen  express  his  sentiments. 

Mr.  Pomeroy.  I  will  state  that  during  the 
canvass,  I  pledged  myself  to  suffer  my  right  arm 


268 


to  b3  palsied  and  fall  before  I  would  vote  for  an 
ordinance  of  secession  under  the  present  circum- 
stances. 

Mr.  Stewart.  I  believe  I  will  vote  for  Mr. 
Watkins. 

Mr.  Welch.  In  casting  my  vote  on  this  occa- 
sion, I  feel  it  due  to  make  an  explanation.  So 
far  as  the  positions  of  the  two  gentlemen 
are  concerned  upon  secession  and  Union,  I  see  no 
difference.  Mr.  Watkins  I  have  known  long  and 
well;  but  since  the  commencement  of  this  elec- 
tion, of  these  nominations,  I  have  had  but  one 
governing  motive  in  my  vote,  and  that  is,  voting 
for  men  selected  by  a  majority  of  the  delegates. 
I  therefore  vote  for  Mr.  Pomeroy. 

Mr.  Hough.  By  permisssion  of  the  gentleman 
I  will  make  a  personal  explanation.  Yesterday 
evening  it  was  announced  there  would  be  a  meet- 
ing of  the  delegates  of  the  7th  Congressional  Dis- 
trict, for  the  nomination  of  a  candidate  for  the 
office  for  which  we  are  now  voting.  The  meeting 
was  at  my  room.  All  the  delegates  did  not  at- 
tend, but  some  six  or  seven  were  there,  and  they 
all  expressed  themselves  for  Mr.  Watkins.  If 
there  has  been  any  other  meeting,  I  am  not  aware 
of  it.  I  know  Mr.  Watkins  to  be  a  Union  man. 
His  action  has  been  in  favor  of  the  Union  in  south- 
east Missouri.  There  can  be  no  question  on  that 
subject. 

Mr.  Bogy.  There  are  fifteen  members  from 
that  District.  Eight  of  those  delegates  held  a 
meeting  last  evening  and  expressed  themselves 
in  favor  of  Mr.  Pomeroy. 

Mr.  Welch.  It  appearing  then  that  Mr.  P.  is 
a  choice  of  a  majority  of  the  district,  I  shall  cast 
my  vote  for  him. 

Mr.  Stewart.  I  desire  to  change  my  vote.  I 
vote  for  Mr.  Pomeroy. 

The  vote  was  announced  as  follows :  Watkins, 
39 ;  Pomeroy,  51 . 

Mr.  Breckinridge  presented  a  communica- 
tion from  Geo.  R.  Taylor,  President  of  the  Pacific 
Railroad  Company,  stating  that  orders  have  been 
given  to  transport  members  and  officers  of  the 
Convention  over  his  road  free. 

Judge  Birch  offered  a  resolution  that  was 
unanimously  adopted,  tendering  the  thanks  of  the 
Convention  to  the  Mercantile  Library  Association 
for  the  free  use  of  the  Library,  and  other  privi- 
leges granted  to  them,  as  well  as  extending  thanks 
to  the  hospitality  of  the  citizens  of  St.  Louis. 

Mr.  Woolfolk,  from  the  Committee  on  Print- 
ing, presented  the  following  report  : 

The  Committee  on  Printing  beg  leave  to  report 
that,  in  accordance  with  instructions  the  Secretary 
of  the  Convention  has  had  the  printing  executed 
by  Geo.  Knapp  &  Co.,  the  expense  of  which  will 
be  less  than  $200. 

The  Committee  also  report  that,  in  accordance 
with  the  resolution  proposed  by  Mr.  Dunn,  on 


the  9th  of  March,  and  which  was  adopted  by  the 
Convention,  they  contracted  with  Geo.  Knapp  & 
Co.  to  print  the  proceedings  of  the  Convention  at 
rates  not  to  exceed  $500  for  5,000  copies  of  one 
hundred  pages.  At  the  time  the  contract  was 
made  it  was  thought  that  not  more  than  one 
hundred  pages  would  be  required;  but  as  the  pro- 
ceedings are  now  nearly  printed  they  will  extend 
over  about  two  hundred  and  fifty  pages.  As 
a  book  of  reference,  the  Committeo  deem  it  in- 
valuable; the  proof  sheets  have  been  submitted 
to  the  members  interested  for  revision,  and  it  will 
be  the  only  authorized  record,  for  public  use,  of 
the  proceedings  of  the  Convention. 

The  Committee  respectfully  ask  that  their  ac- 
tion be  indorsed  by  the  Convention,  and  that  the 
following  resolution  be  adopted : 
Resolved,  That  the  account  of  Geo.  Knapp  &  Co. , 
for  printing  5,000  copies  of  the  proceedings  of 
the  Convention,  be  audited  by  the  Committee  on 
Accounts,  and  that  the  same  may  be  considered 
as  printing  for  the  Convention,  the  payment  for 
which  is  provided  for  out  of  the  fund  appropria- 
ted by  the  Legislature  of  the  State,  for  the  con- 
tingent expenses  of  the  Convention. 

The  report  was  adopted. 

Mr.  Gantt,  of  St.  Louis,  offered  a  resolution 
tendering  the  thanks  of  the  Convention  to  the 
Hon.  Sterling  Price,  President,  and  Mr.  Samuel 
Lowe,  Secretary  of  the  Convention,  for  the  able 
and  courteous  manner  in  which  they  have  dis- 
charged their  duties  to  the  Convention. 

It  was  adopted  unanimously. 

Mr.  Siieeley  offered  a  resolution  instructing 
the  President  of  this  Convention  to  transmit  a 
certified  copy  of  the  proceedings  of  this  Conven- 
tion to  the  President  of  the  United  States  and  to 
the  Governor  of  each  State. 

A  resolution  was  passed  tendering  the  thanks 
of  the  Convention  to  the  President  of  the  Pa- 
cific Railroad  for  his  courteous  and  kind  invita- 
tion. 

Mr.  Welch  offered  a  resolution  instructing  the 
Committee  appointed  under  the  seventh  resolu- 
tion, that  in  the  event  the  Legislature  should  be 
in  session  on  or  about  the  third  Monday  in  De- 
cember, that  the  Committee  should  be  empow- 
ered to  change  the  time  and  place  for  the  calling 
together  of  this  Convention. 

Rejected. 

On  motion  of  Mr.  Hall,  of  Buchanan,  the 
Convention  took  a  recess  of  one  hour. 

AFTERNOON   SESSION. 

Convention  met  at  12 J  o'clock. 

Mr.  Woolfolk  offered  a  resolution  in  regard 
to  the  distribution  of  copies  of  the  printed  debates 
and  proceedings  among  the  members,  but  ac- 
cepted the  following  substitute  offered  by  Mr. 
Birch,  which  was  thereupon  adopted : 


269 


Resolved,  That,  of  the  bound  volumes  of  the 
proceedings  and  debates  of  this  Convention,  a 
copy  be  forwarded  by  the  publishers,  to  the  Clerk 
of  each  County  Court,  and  the  State  Librarian, 
(for  preservation  in  their  offices  respectively,) — 
to  each  member  of  the  General  Assembly  now  in 
session,  and  to  each  member  of  the  Executive 
Government,  and  Judge  of  the  Supreme  Court- 
to  the  Librarian  of  each  State  in  the  Union,  and 
of  the  Congressional  Library  at  Washington — and 
that,  after  reserving  a  copy  for  each  of  the  officers 
of  this  Convention,  and  for  the  Law  and  Mer- 
cantile Library,  and  Agricultural  and  Mechanical 
Associations,  the  remainder  shall  be  forwarded, 
in  equal  and  proper  proportions,  to  the  address 
of  the  members  of  this  Convention. 

Mr.  "Wright  offered  the  following,  which  was 
adopted : 

Resolved,  That  the  resolution  of  this  Conven- 
tion, requesting  the  General  Assembly  of  this 
State  to  call  for  a  National  Convention,  in  pur- 
suance of  a  provision  of  the  Constitution  of  the 
United  States,  be  communicated  officially  by  the 
President  of  this  Convention  to  the  Legislature  of 
this  State. 

Mr.  Foster  offered  a  resolution  to  cause  a  cer- 
tain number  of  copies  of  the  Majority  Report  of 
the  Committee  on  Federal  Relations,  and  the  re- 
ports of  the  Committee  on  the  Commissioner 
from  Georgia.,  to  be  printed  for  distribution. 

Mr.  Hatcher  moved  to  amend  by  adding  the 
Minority  Report  of  the  Committee  on  Federal 
Relations. 

Messrs.  Birch  and  Norton  expressed  them- 
selves opposed  to  both  the    resolution  and  the 


amendment,  inasmuch  as  the  reports  would  all 
be  printed  in  the  regular  proceedings,  and  hence 
this  resolution  involved  an  unnecessary  ex- 
pense. 

The  ayes  and  noes  were  called  on  Mr.  Hatch- 
er's amendment,  with  the  following  result: 

Ayes— Messrs.  Bogy,  Calhoun,  Collier,  Hatch- 
er, Howell,  Maupin,  Norton,  Pomeroy,  Rankin, 
Shackelford  of  Howard  and  Tindall. 

Noes— Messrs.  Allen,  Bast,  Birch,  Breckin- 
ridge, Bridge,  Brown,  Bush,  Dunn,  Flood,  Foster, 
Gantt,  Gravelly,  Hall  of  Buchanan,  Hall  of  Ran', 
dolph,  Henderson,  Hitchcock,  Holmes,  Holt" 
How,  Isbell,  Jackson,  Jamison,  Johnson,  Kidd,' 
Leper,  Linton,  Long,  Marmaduke,  Marvin,  Mc- 
Clurg,  McCormack,  McDowell,  McFerran,  Meyer, 
Morrow,  Orr,  Phillips,  Rowland,  Scott,  Shackel- 
ford of  St.  Louis,  Sheeley,  Smith  of  Linn,  Smith 
of  St.  Louis,  Turner,  Waller,  Welch,  Woodson, 
Woolfolk,  Wright,  Vanbuskirk  and  Mr.  Presi- 
dent. 

Excused— Mr.  Redd. 

Amendment  declared  rejected. 

Mr.  Foster  said  that  as  he  had  not  been  aware 
that  the  reports  would  all  be  printed  in  the  regu- 
lar proceedings  when  he  offered  his  resolution,  he 
would  now  withdraw  it. 

Mr.  Holmes  offered  a  resolution  allowing  $5 
each  per  day  to  Captains  J.  E.  D.  Couzins  and  J. 
D.  Camp  for  services  rendered  the  Convention. 
Adopted. 

On  motion  of  Mr.  Sheelet,  the  Convention 
thereupon  adjourned  to  meet  again  on  the  third 
Monday  in  December. 


Attest  : 


SAMUEL  A.  LOWE, 

Secretary  of  tht  Convention. 


STERLING  PRICE, 

President  of  the  Convention. 


■   V>      \J\U  I     /  xj 


i 


! 
: 


l&lillOffi. 

